


What You Need Most

by Ainikki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 02, Alternate Season/Series 11, Demon possession, Destiel Reverse Bang, Gabriel Ships It, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Murder of a Child, The het relationships are mentioned briefly and never again, bobby knows all, happy ending guarantee, major character death is temporary, mentions of child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-29
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-10-24 11:20:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10740666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ainikki/pseuds/Ainikki
Summary: AU of Season 11 Finale, "Alpha and Omega." The Darkness offers to give Dean what he needs most, and Dean finds himself ten years in the past with Sam dead, Azazel on the loose and, seemingly, nothing that he needs. When he and Castiel meet, they form an uneasy truce to rescue Sam--but nothing goes as planned. Dean learns that what he wants and what he needs are not always the same--and comes to understand the gift the Darkness has given him. Written for the Destiel Reverse Bang.





	1. Broken Loose

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this fic does double duty for me: it's my first slash fic *and* my first Supernatural fic. I'd be embarrassed if I weren't so nervous! But I had a lot of fun writing this, and it was a blast to write for Kuwlshadow's amazingly beautiful artwork here:
> 
> [LJ](http://kuwlshadow.livejournal.com/76652.html) | [tumblr](http://kuwlshadow.tumblr.com/post/160073694898/art-title-fallen-angel-prompt-d014)
> 
> Go give it some love!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/kullerva/79201692/746/746_original.jpg)  
> 

Light breaks over the garden as the souls leave Dean's chest, bathing the area in light so white that for a moment it is blinding. Dean gasps.

"Better?" Chuck asks. 

Dean blinks, trying to bring his eyes back into focus. It takes him a moment to answer; he can't see. "What about us?" he asks Chuck--always Chuck; he still isn't comfortable thinking of the scruffy little man as God. As his breathing steadies and his vision clears, he adds, "What about earth?"

"Earth'll be fine. It's got you--and Sam." Chuck smiles a little, looking healthier than he has in days. His eyes glint with inner light. He turns away from Dean and approaches the Darkness on the other side of the garden.

Amara faces Dean as Chuck nears her. She, too, offers a hesitant smile. "Dean, you gave me what I needed most," the Darkness says, uncharacteristically soft as she takes her brother's hand in her own. "I want to do the same for you."

She doesn't give Dean a chance to reply. He watches as she swirls into black smoke that reminds him, for one panicked moment, of demons. Chuck morphs into thick white mist, interweaving with the Darkness; the white and black columns rise into the sky, impossibly bright after the long sunless day. Dean blinks and feels something wet on his cheek. He ignores it.

When he blinks his eyes again, the sun is setting through an open window in front of him--and he definitely is not in the garden anymore. 

He is standing just outside one of Bobby's spare rooms--Bobby's?--and there is a figure sprawled out on the paisley bedspread in the failing light. He looks familiar. Dean leans forward instinctively, caught off balance in more ways than one, and enters the room, recognizing Sam.

"Sam?" he asks. "Sammy?" No response. Dean approaches the edge of the bed to shake Sam awake. When there is no response or movement from Sam, Dean feels a steady thrum of panic settle in, but he doesn't let it shake his balance. Instead, he settles his hands on Sam's shoulders and focuses on what he knows.

He is here out of nowhere: the Darkness must have sent him here. To give him "what he needed most," he remembers; the words echoing in his mind. It stands to reason that he is somewhere in the past; Bobby's house and the length of Sam's sideburns tell him that much. He has retained his memory, as far as he knows; that’s good. It’s good because if he didn't have his memory he would think that Sam was actually dead in front of him. He knows he isn't. Sam is fine. He has to be. Dean is the one who took the stupid risk with the soul bomb, not him.

As he shakes Sam, Bobby enters the doorway bearing two beer cans and a bitter frown. "Don't go tryin' to wake him again, boy," Bobby says. "Come have a drink."

Dean takes one more moment with Sam, turning him with both hands and revealing the tell-tale bloodstains from the wound in his back. Dean is wrong; Sam is dead. There is no Sam in the future because Sam is dead, here. Dean feels his mouth open; jaw unhinged, he looks up at Bobby. 

Bobby surveys him with a puzzled expression that twists something in Dean. Seeing Bobby again makes the remaining pieces click together for him. The Darkness has returned Dean to the night Sam died the first time; to the night Azazel manipulated Jake into killing Sam for the first time.

Right, because Sam has died more than once. "Fuck my life," Dean says under his breath. He releases Sam and stands up fully, shaking out his spine.

Bobby shrugs sourly. "Won't help matters."

"Ain't that the truth." Dean lets go of Sam. His lifeless body slumps onto the bed and is still.

***

Dean settles into the kitchen with Bobby, drinking in oddly companionable silence. Despite the shit he's landed in, he has missed Bobby terribly, and seeing the old man again feels something like seeing his dad, if his dad had ever bothered to stick around for more than a day or two.

"I know you're out of it, son," Bobby says, slurring the last word some, "but you gotta let this go. We shoulda burned that boy already."

Dean hunches his shoulders and curls his fingers over his beer. "Can we not talk about this, please? Just--not right now."

Bobby nods and doesn't say anything. Dean notices the odd way he is leaning off-kilter in his chair and realizes that Bobby is probably about as drunk as he can be while still being able to move. He doesn't remember that from his first time around--probably because he was pretty out of it himself. Out of it enough to promise his soul to a Crossroads demon in exchange for one more year with Sam; one more year of saving and hunting before the lights went out.

As Dean drinks and thinks and works through the devastating idea that Sam is dead again, Dean processes his knowledge of his situation in the context of the Darkness' words. Somewhere, here, is what he needs most.

Impossible. Sam is dead. So is dad. And…mom. The ache of her death is a macabre and bitter anchor; the linchpin and impetus of his life. Azazel is still alive—out there somewhere. 

There can't be anything here that he needs. 

Yet there must be, so he thinks it through.

Bobby? No; he loves Bobby, of course, in his own twisted way that gets everyone killed over and over again (including Sam). Years ago the idea that he loved Bobby as well or better than his own father would have bothered him, but now that feeling is easy, comfortable and inevitable. It is true that he needs Bobby, but he cannot fathom needing Bobby most. There has to be more to this.

Maybe he needs to save Sam? That has been his purpose all these years. Since he was four, he's had to save Sam from everything. But that’s hardwired into his brain and body and has been for years; it isn't a need but a compulsion. And besides, Sam has been saving himself for a long time, and saving Dean as well. He is willing to admit, at least in his own mind, that he has something of a complex about saving Sam, but even he does not believe it to be the sum total of his existence.

The Darkness has stranded him on the worst day of his life on the flimsy pretext of giving him something he needs.

Bitch.

The word reminds him of Sam. Dean wants to cry, but can’t. He remembers (with some shame) crying the first time around, but circling back here after everything--after years, after his near-fatal sacrifice with the souls--he feels oddly numb. He’s risked everything for Sam, again, and has failed to save him, again. His life is a bad TV episode on repeat, and he can’t think his way out of this maze. He drinks with Bobby until the old man goes upstairs. Then he goes to check on Sam.

***

Bobby shouldn't have left him alone. 

Bobby should know that leaving Dean alone right now will only prompt him to remember, but then, Bobby doesn't have the same memories as Dean. He is stuck in the first--no, second--year that Sam and Dean had been hunting together. The end of that year. 

In some ways, the end of everything normal in his life. As Dean considers Sam's corpse from a chair in the corner of the room, he remembers, with a detached feeling of déjà vu, that this is the day he'd sold his soul to Lilith to bring Sam back. This is the day that began his long road to Hell, to the apocalypse, to the Cage, to endless catastrophes after that. This is the day that resulted in the angels falling, and in Sam nearly dying to seal the doors of Hell. It resulted in the Mark of Cain and the release of the Darkness and her plague. He can prevent all of that from happening--if Sam stays dead.

At the thought, Dean's hands start shaking no matter how hard he tries to hold them still. The jerky movements spread up his arms, causing him to hunch in and hug himself so that he won't fall out of the chair or cry or do something insane. He takes a deep breath.

The world could be saved, forever, and all it would take is Sam's life. 

He's identified a need, and it's a big one. Ever since he'd saved Sam from the fire, he's been preoccupied with saving the world. 

Well, when the Darkness gave gifts, she didn't fuck around.

He takes a breath, shaky, and tries not to give into the urge to scream it all out. This is fucking unfair, is what it is. Undoing everything terrible in his life and in the world—except for Sam's death? Erasing the Darkness? Erasing Hell? All gone, never to be, if Sam remains dead?

The memory of Hell gives Dean pause. He sits up in in the high-backed chair, breathing steady now, and rests both hands on his knees. In this world, he never has to be the righteous man in Hell that starts the apocalypse; he is innocent of that. In this world, Sam never frees Lucifer and is likewise innocent of apocalyptic bloodshed and world-ending consequences. He is innocent of drinking demon blood; innocent of addiction. Hell, Ruby's not even in the picture yet. 

Dean sits up straight and lets one hand drift over his eyes. He still remembers Hell, even though he's never truly experienced it in this version of reality. As recollections of torture and fear bubble up from below the surface of his awareness, he takes a deep breath and forces his mind blank. He directs the hand over his eyes to his shoulder, where the handprint scar had been for years after his first resurrection, and finds it gone. At least that fit; he'd been returned to a new skin upon his own latest resurrection in the future, and he hadn't had the scar then either. For the first time in a long time, he misses it. As his fingers skirt over incongruously smooth skin, he realizes that Cas isn't here. Why would he be? There is no reason for him and Dean to ever meet, now. 

The idea makes Dean want to find Bobby and crush him in the kind of hug that he and Sam usually only give one another after deaths or near-death experiences. He hadn't hugged Cas enough. Well, add it to the long list of other failures he's accumulated over his turbulent existence. It isn't like he'd hugged Sam enough, either. Not for this. 

He focuses his complete attention on Sam. "What am I supposed to do, Sammy?"

His brother doesn't reply.

***

Dean finds himself on a long stretch of blacktopped highway at Baby's wheel without entirely remembering how he got there. He knows that he'd had to escape the accusatory pose of Sam's corpse. Bobby's house is no refuge from that. So that leaves Baby: his oldest friend, and possibly his best. Her fuel gauge looks low; he must have fallen into some form of driving hypnosis and forgotten the time. The sun is set, no moon, so he has to rely on the headlamps to tell where he is. The nearest highway sign identifies Greenwood just twenty miles ahead.

Greenwood. Mississippi. He is driving to the crossroads.

Dean swallows thickly and taps both hands on the steering wheel. He should not do that. The Darkness has sent him here for a reason; the past is not going to stay changed if he keeps doing what he did before—making the same mistakes. 

"Crossroad Blues" comes on the radio. He promptly turns it off.

Dean pulls over to the curb lane and lets others pass ahead, whizzing by at speeds that seem too high from his stationary position. He takes a few deep breaths to steady himself, then reaches for the flask he usually keeps in the side pocket of his jacket. It isn't there.

"Shit," he mutters under his breath. Apparently his past self hadn't been quite as prepared. Or quite as much of an alcoholic.

Well, he has two choices. He can go back to Bobby's, or he can trust whatever force has guided him this far. 

He decides to go back to Bobby's even though doing a U-turn on the freeway at these speeds is a risk at least as great as going up against a werewolf alone. Getting impaled with something of Baby's doesn't really sound so bad right now, and he'll be damned if he'll trust the Darkness for anything. The Darkness is a monster. So is Chuck, really. Big monsters, but monsters nonetheless: creatures capable of tearing the fabric of the universe asunder. Neither had asked him if he wanted to be sent here; he can choose how he wants to go out.

He kicks Baby into high gear and makes it to the nearest break in the highway meridian before he changes his mind. Yes, he's been planted here--against his will and without his consent. However, something is obviously controlling his movements; he would never have chosen to take this route alone, not with his own exact knowledge of the future. The Darkness seems keen on avoiding world-ending disasters—or maybe she doesn't, and he's walking into some kind of apocalyptic trap?

Dean's hands white-knuckle grip the wheel. He feels without logically knowing that any deviation of his that goes too far off the Darkness’ prescribed script for him in this situation will only result in another involuntary correction. When he pulls off the exit to Greenwood, he breathes a sigh of relief that doesn't feel completely genuine. His hands uncoil, stiff and clumsy, as he eases his hold on steering.

"If I don't get an explanation for this sooner or later," he mutters to Baby's dash, "someone's going to get hurt real bad."

***

The dingy diner where he'd met the Crossroads demon last, Lloyd's, looks as faded and washed out as the last time he'd seen it. It’s late, nearly 2:30 A.M., and Lloyd's appears to be closed: there are no lights in the windows.

He parks Baby in the center of the ragged road and kills the lights. He pauses for a moment, gripping the steering wheel for reassurance before getting out of the car.

The night is too quiet; he doesn't even hear the ambient noise of crickets, or wind. It is still as a painting: like one of those ugly monochromatic oil ones Sarah Blake had sold at estate auctions. And crap, they—Dean and Sam—had gotten Sara killed, too. Not yet, Dean thinks to steady himself. Not ever.

Baby's door slamming shatters the silence of the scene; Dean's feet crunching over the gravel sounds like the loudest thing in the world.

Dean has his picture in his hands but doesn't bury it. He stops at the exact middle of the crossroads, yarrow stalks blooming in garish yellow to the back and side of him, and freezes.

Last time he'd been here, he remembers being angry; angry and sickened and terrified. Now, though, he is still, inside and outside; the numbing fog he's been under since his arrival has not let go of him. He stands still, unmoving, waiting. Though he's made the decision to come here--or rather, to allow something else to direct him here--he isn't keen on selling his soul again.

Because Dean is still operating from his cold, numb place, he finds it difficult to react to the demon's presence in any meaningful way when she appears. She is standing a little ahead of him, just in front of the bar; the thin light of the moon catches in her curly hair and reflects off her red eyes. The woman the demon is possessing has clearly come from some sort of red carpet event, from the way she is dressed--certainly, she hasn't come from Lloyd's. Dark hair, dark eyes, pale--his type, though in a somewhat distorted way. The demon had taken several guises in his experience with her, but none had been this lushly attractive to him before. In another mood, in another place, if she wasn't possessed by a demon, he might actually like her. A little.

"Dean," she says, smiling coyly. "It is just so, so good to see you. Look at you: gone and got your family killed, all alone in the world...it's too sweet." 

Dean feels his throat constrict but does not lose his detached calm.

The demon's smile grows wider and becomes something like a sneer. "Excuse me, you're gonna have to give me a moment. Sometimes, you gotta stop and smell the roses."

This is ordinarily where Dean would make some quip or threat. He knows this; he understands that it's his move now, yet he doesn't speak. The numbness in his mind is like fog, holding him suspended and unmoved.

When she elicits no reaction from him, the demon pouts. "Okay, little killjoy," she says. "What do you want? I'm guessing you're here for a reason."

For a second Dean's tempted. He wants to say, "Bring Sam back," but he doesn't, because he can't. He tries shifting his feet, moving somehow to shake himself out of the fog, but he is rooted to the spot like a demon in a Devil's trap, and now he starts to freak out, though no sign of his panic is visible.

The demon twists one curl carefully around the finger of one hand and says, "I read the newsletter. Little Sammy's downstairs, and you want to get him out, is that about right?"

Dean tries to shake his head--in assent or disagreement, in anything, if only to demonstrate that he has some control over his body--and remains still.

The demon steps back from him suddenly and narrows her eyes. "Something's wrong with you."

"The same could be said about you."

The voice Dean hears is male, deep, familiar, and about as welcome as his father's after a particularly long and dangerous hunt--if his father were still alive. He swallows heavily and feels some of the numbing fog in his mind lift.

Castiel. Cas is here. The sense of reprieve Dean feels is almost enough to shake him out of his detachment—but he still can't move.

As Dean struggles to act, he watches the demon stumble back two steps of her own accord—backing away from something. "You--" she says, spitting the word. "You're not supposed to be here."

"Yet here I am." Castiel's voice comes from somewhere behind Dean; he can't see the angel yet.

The demon retreats further, and Dean flicks his eyes to either side, trying to find Castiel in the dark. But the road isn’t lit and the moon isn’t visible, so all Dean sees is a blurred shadow passing by his left side. He hears a rush of wings--and then he hears the woman scream.

Dean’s eyes snap back to the Crossroads demon, now sprawled on the ground a few yards ahead of him with one very pissed-looking angel standing over her, one hand to her forehead as her eyes burn white. Dean catches the odor of burning flesh in the back of his throat and nearly gags.

But the Crossroads demon doesn’t go down easily; even as Castiel burns her vessel, she fights back, drawing a knife from her side that Dean hadn't noticed before. She slashes at Castiel’s coat, then his shoulder. Castiel’s eyes flash electric blue, and he takes a step back from her, gasping. 

Dean realizes she has an angel blade.

In less than a second Dean positions himself behind the Crossroads demon; he gets the arm holding the blade in a lock and yanks it out of its socket. The demon grunts and twists in his hold; she brings the blade up to slice his cheek. As his hands come up instinctively to protect himself, she pushes the blade into the soft flesh near his kidney.

Dean sees the hit coming and moves out of the way: she only grazes his hipbone, which hurts like a bitch but will likely do no lasting damage. In the same move as the evasion, Dean manages to relieve her of her weapon. By this time Castiel has come up in front of the demon; he pulls her away from Dean and places both hands on her head. There is a bright flash of light followed by a terrifying and indefinable noise, and Dean collapses to the ground, shielding his eyes.

When the light fades, Dean is still on the ground, and it is dark: darker now than when he’d fallen, or maybe the contrast makes it seem that way. The moon must be rising; as his eyes adjust, he can pick out more detail in the dark. Dean casts around and finds someone’s brown-panted leg at eye level. Looking up, he sees a pair of very blue eyes. For a moment he is so relieved that he forgets where--or rather, when--he is, and pulls Castiel down in a hug tight enough to bruise ribs.

"It's good to see you, man," Dean says into Castiel's shoulder. 

Castiel stiffens in his grip and pulls back, shoving Dean’s shoulders with more force than is strictly necessary; Dean’s back hits the ground squarely and all breath leaves his lungs.

“Do I know you?” Castiel asks from above him. Dean sees the glint of an angel blade by Castiel’s left sleeve and realizes that Cas must see him as a threat. The blade he’d taken off the Crossroads demon lies nearby, shining dully underneath some wet leaves.

“Guess not,” Dean mutters as he sits up. He grips the angel blade in both hands and settles on the ground. He places the blade inside his jacket for safekeeping; hopefully Castiel won't see him as a threat if he's not holding a weapon.

Castiel moves back a step and raises his own blade. “Are there more of them? More demons?”

Dean shakes his head. “No. I don’t think so.”

Castiel frowns and lowers his weapon incrementally. “Who are you?”

“Dean,” he answers. “Dean Winchester.”

At this, Castiel’s head tilts to one side, and the angel blade vanishes into his sleeve. 

So fast that Dean doesn't catch the movement, a man leaps from the ditch behind Castiel and brings down two fists on Castiel's back. Castiel grunts but doesn't fall; he uses both hands to spin the man forward, then punches him in the skull; the man screams and his eyes explode outward in white light. There is a hideous accompanying squelch, and then another person--a woman this time, though it is difficult to tell in the dark--barrels into Dean from behind; he reaches into the place where he’d stashed the angel blade before and finds it, mercifully, where it should be. As the demon pulls his shoulder backward, he twists his arm around and down, bringing the knife into the demon's spine.

Before the first corpse has fallen, another demon is on him, and another. The familiar feel of battle rush sets in, keeping his breathing even and calm; he ducks, rolls, and lets the two demons crash into each other, then springs up to pick them off while they are still disoriented. 

He stumbles backward, losing his balance slightly as the last demon clutches at him, and rams into something solid.

He whirls and sees Castiel a bloody and bedraggled mess. His hair, always askew, is now a series of slick, bloody spikes. Half of his face is coated shiny red, and a sleeve has come off the trench coat.

Dean opens his mouth to say something, but Castiel beats him to it. 

“You lied,” Castiel says in a low, clipped voice that Dean has only heard him use on Raphael and Crowley before. “You, Dean Winchester.” 

Shit. Dean freezes for a second--wildlife frozen in headlights--before he remembers that angels, in their dickish state, are essentially monsters. Dean knows what to do when facing a monster that has him outclassed, outgunned, and now--with more demons closing in--outnumbered.

Dean runs, sprinting back toward the relative safety of Baby as fast as he can possibly go.

This fucking day. 

His hands find his keys and the ignition by sheer force of habit. Dean speeds off in Baby with his hands shaking, dust grinding beneath the car’s wheels.

How do you outrun an angel?


	2. No Rest for the Wicked

When Dean arrives back at Bobby's he still feels out of breath. A Jeep is in the driveway; he recognizes it as one of Ellen's cars. He runs into the house, banging the door behind him. Unsteady on his feet, he nearly falls upon entering the house.

Fortunately Bobby is in the front room when he enters and he manages to catch Dean's shoulder mid-fall. "The Hell you been, boy?"

Dean straightens up and shoves Bobby off. "Angel warding," Dean gasps. "We need it. Now."

Castiel is not Cas. Castiel is a warrior of God, and a dick, and thinks Dean led him to an ambush. Also, he stupidly knows Dean's name, which will make Dean even easier to find. Dean needs to protect Bobby from angels at all costs.

"Angel warding?" Bobby asks incredulously. "What next, unicorn fencing?"

"I'm serious, Bobby," Dean says. "There's an angel behind me and I can't outrun the bastard for long."

Something twinges in him at saying that; Castiel has been Cas for so long that he's almost forgotten the angel's factory setting state. Memory also restores the idea that Bobby is not as he had been; Dean has more knowledge of angel lore than him at this point, which means he'll have to put up the sigils and warding himself--at least until Bobby gets up to speed.

Bobby levels an even glare at Dean. "One," he says, ticking the item off on his fingers, "angels ain't real. Two, if they were, why would you think I knew how to keep 'em from getting in? Three, what have you been drinking?"

Shit, and shit again. Why couldn't it have been Sam who got sent back? Sam had all that crap memorized years ago. All Dean really remembers clearly of angel lore is the banishing sigil--the first one Cas taught him. His head is spinning.

Dean shakes his head in denial at Bobby's last point--he'd never drive Baby drunk--and bites back something angry and frustrated that Bobby doesn't deserve. "Stone cold sober," he says. "And angels are real. You've got the books in the library--History of Angels, an Enochian dictionary--I need those." Dean feels something tighten behind his eyes. He is running out of time and will have to do most of this alone--

Bobby is about to reply to Dean's book listing--with some smart remark, undoubtedly--when Ellen comes up the stairs. She is wiping something red and thick off of her hands with a filthy plaid rag. She regards Dean with a little frown. “You finally back from your suicide run?”

Dean doesn’t answer, instead directing his attention to her hands. “What’s going on?”

“I caught a live one on the way here,” Ellen says. “Demon. It’s in the basement. Feisty little thing.” She reaches behind, into a satchel strapped to her back, and hands Dean a gun: the Colt.

“It had this on it,” Ellen says. “No way the demons can open the Devil’s Gate without it.”

Dean swallows heavily. He’d almost forgotten about that particular crisis. He notices that the gun has not survived its change of hands unscathed; dried blood marks the casing, tarnishing the barrel, and Dean thinks he sees a few more scratches on the metal than he remembers being there. 

He accepts the Colt from Ellen reverently, not entirely sure what to do with it now that he has it. The Colt has never brought him much luck--his only completely successful shot had been a result of him, Sam and his dad’s planning, plus sheer dumb luck. He’d wasted two shots, and in the warped future of Zachariah’s making, he’d failed to kill the Devil with it.

Still, he’d rather have it in his hands than opening a door to Hell. 

“Ellen,” Bobby calls from beyond Dean. “Get in here.”

Ellen rolls her eyes at Dean. “Rude.” She tosses the red-sodden rag into Dean’s hands and pushes past him to the kitchen.

Dean follows her, dropping the rag as he does, and sees that Bobby has already drawn one of the books Dean had mentioned from the shelves. He is in the process of looking for another.

***

All told, it takes less than ten minutes for Castiel to find them from the moment Dean slams Bobby's door to the moment the angel appears, clean and poised, in Bobby's library. By that point, Dean is ready; the second he hears the whoosh of wings, he presses one bloody hand to his hastily drawn banishing sigil, sending Castiel back to Heaven in a corona of white light.

Bobby looks up for a moment, blinks, and grunts. "That the angel?"

Dean nods and stares at the place Castiel had just been.

"Hm," Bobby says. "I'm not impressed."

Dean redraws the banishing sigil hastily. When he spares a moment to look at his hand, he realizes that he's cut too deep and is bleeding too much.

"Yeah," Dean says noncommittally into his hand. "Total dicks."

Ellen is walking along the wall with a book open, drawing symbols in a little notebook as she moves. "I think I've just about got this," she says, snapping the book shut and pulling her notes out of it. "I'll start work blocking the entrances. Jo'll help when she gets here."

Jo is coming? Where is Jo supposed to be? Dean doesn't remember. "Why's she coming in?"

Ellen smacks Dean over the head with her notebook, but there is no force in the blow. She doesn't answer, instead opening the library door and heading down the hall.

"Idjit," Bobby says. "Why else would Jo be comin'?"

Dean thinks about it for a moment and feels his stomach drop. Reunions are rare for hunters. They almost never happen--unless there is a death. Like Asa Fox. And—Dean swallows—like Sam.

Jo is coming for Sam's funeral.

***

Though Dean has experienced what he's decided to call "time confusion" multiple times since arriving here via the Darkness' indifference, he admits to himself that this part is new. Dean has never actually had to bury Sam before. Even when he'd fallen in the Cage, there had been no body--and Sam hadn't even been dead; not really, though his soul had continued to be shredded by Lucifer for decades in Hell's timeline.

Dean, Bobby and Ellen had completed the angel warding--as best as Dean could figure--about a half an hour before. After completing his last hasty scrawl, Dean had gone back upstairs to see Sam before Jo and Ellen prepared him for burning.

The scent of ink and blood used to create the warding barriers around Bobby's house clings to Dean, masking the sickly-sweet death odor coming off of Sam. That, too, is new; though Dean and Sam have died several times, they didn't tend to stay that way for this long. Dean stands leaning against the doorway, but doesn’t go in. He’s been so preoccupied with saving Bobby and Ellen from being steamrollered by angels that he hasn’t given due diligence to bringing Sam back--yet.

He hoists himself up straight, using the doorjamb for support, and goes down to the basement to question the demon Ellen brought in.

Bobby's basement is quiet save for the echoing of water dripping somewhere, faint and slow. Dean feels an odd pang of nostalgia for the old place: it isn't the panic room he'd become so familiar with; it isn't the jail he'd left Sam to rot in during his detox from demon blood. It's just a normal place with cracked yellow wallpaper, occult decor and Devil's Traps on every available flat surface. When Dean tries to identify what he is feeling, his mind supplies the word "safe."

Yes, he is safe. Lucifer is in his cage, and he is still on the first apocalypse. If Sam wasn’t dead, this would be a pretty good universe to stay in, assuming he can not fuck it up—just this once.

Then Dean notices that the demon Ellen brought in is possessing a child, and thoughts of safety flee from him. Memories of the girl Lilith had possessed flash behind his eyes, but this child is different--a boy, emaciated, with bruises on his forehead and chin. He is wearing a T-shirt with the Ninja Turtles on it. Blood marks both of his arms where a knife had gone in, but it's dry; the child is no longer bleeding. Apparently Ellen had patched him up.

Dean had intended to interrogate the demon. He still does, but the vessel gives him pause. He isn’t yet the man that tortured souls in Hell. If he plays his cards right, he never has to be that person.

The demon’s face twists in a rictus like a smile. “Are you here to play with me, too?”

The voice is incongruously light and naive. Like Lilith, in temperament if not in kind. Dean doesn’t answer, instead crossing to the table where Bobby keeps his supplies. Holy water is the safest way to start; chasing it with salt will make it more effective. He would give his left hand for Ruby’s demon killing knife, but he doesn’t have that weapon handy. The Colt would be most effective of all, of course, but he'd left that upstairs in one of Bobby's demon-proof lockboxes for safekeeping.

The angel blade he’d taken off the Crossroads demon is also still upstairs. That would probably work better than Ruby’s knife, without being lethal--assuming he can get over his qualms about cutting a kid that looks an awful lot like Sam at seven.

He settles for pouring holy water straight from the jug over the kid’s forehead. The sheen of the water makes the kid’s bruises appear livid, etched, as the demon uses a child’s throat to scream. Dean does his best to ignore the sound as he rubs salt into the kid’s scalp. It isn't like this is the worst thing he's done—taking all his memories into account, anyway.

The demon’s eyes close. When they open again, Dean catches a yellow flash and steps back, startled.

Azazel?

“Why, Dean,” the demon says, ducking his head a little. “How nice to see you again. How’s tricks?”

Dean has faced down more than his fair share of monsters and demons without flinching, but he isn't able to stop all of the surprise from showing on his face. He wonders what happened to the other vessel--the janitor--and guesses it had something to do with Jake, or one of the other demonic children.

And crap, there are still other demonic children--including the one sitting in front of him.

“Whoa,” the demon says, his voice going up just the slightest bit in something like excitement. “You are not you--not from here, anyway. Who are you, Dean? Did you get hurt playing with the big boys?”

Again, Dean doesn’t answer. Azazel's recognition of him here reminds him of Cas' similar words to him in the future—when Cas had been human, but still angelic enough to sense that Dean had been pulled out of his timeline, like a planet out of orbit. Alas, Castiel hadn't seemed to recognize him here. And isn't that strange? That a demon should recognize him, and not an angel?

He wants to examine that line of thought further, but with the holy water wearing off, he needs another method to needle the demon.

“Not in the chattiest mood, are we?” Azazel asks, kicking his heels up a little in the chair to which he is tied.

Dean does his best to ignore his family's oldest enemy and flicks his eyes around the room, searching for something better to use. When he comes up with nothing, he pours another chaser of holy water over the demon's head, opens its mouth and pours salt down its throat.

"Testy," the demon says, spitting salt, "and you haven't even asked a question yet."

"You know my question," Dean spits.

The demon's head tilts in a bizarrely childlike way that reminds Dean painfully of Cas. Not Castiel--his Cas. It reminds him that no matter what the demon's done, the kid is innocent. He strangles the reminder harshly, before it can shake his calm. "Sam. I want him back."

"Of course you do." The demon shrugs his shoulders extravagantly and breathes out. "Are you offering a deal? 'Cause I gotta tell you, Deano, your soul's not worth much downstairs."

Dean recalls, vaguely, that the Crossroads demon referred to him as a "gutter soul" in his other life. He knows that isn't true. One of his mantras has always been that demons lie. Dean waits a moment for the demon to go on. He hasn't encountered him face to face many times, but he knows the dude is a monologuer.

"But," Azazel says, pitching his stolen voice higher, "I might be able to wrangle something up. Assuming you let me go, of course." The smile he casts on Dean is yellow and bitter and dead. Dean suspects the kid Azazel is wearing is dead, but he doesn’t want to dwell on that. Not right now.

Again, it would be a lie to say that Dean's not tempted, but the feeling of numbness and uncontrol that had plagued him at the crossroads is creeping up again, and he knows that making a deal with Azazel—or any demon—is not the right choice. Dean opens his mouth to speak, but at that moment, he hears footsteps on the stairs. 

Dean holds a breath in unconsciously, letting it out when he sees Bobby. He flicks his head in the demon's direction. “Is there any chance of saving the kid?” Dean asks.

Bobby shakes his head. “Checked him when he got here. Kid’s been dead for a few days at least.”

Dean breathes a sick sigh of relief. The encroaching numbness in his mind pulls back, allowing him to think clearly and move of his own volition. He goes upstairs slowly, with measured steps, and retrieves the Colt. When he puts the bullet through Azazel’s skull, he feels nothing. Not elation, not sadness, not anything. Even though Azazel begs in a child's voice. Here is another kid he can’t save from another monster he kills too late.

Bobby isn’t thrilled about the hole Dean puts in his wall, but when Dean explains who the demon was he calms down. Dean goes to bed with whisky and gin, and wakes up with both bottles empty.

***

The next morning, Dean sits on the faded bedspread in Bobby’s spare room and places his head in both hands. Bobby, Jo and Ellen had taken Sam at sunrise to prepare him for a hunter’s funeral. Bobby had given him specific instructions to stay upstairs until everything was ready; he isn’t supposed to try to help or interfere. That's just as well; he hates crying in front of people, hates breaking down for any reason. His eyes are bloodshot already from yesterday, and he’s been nursing coffee, water and Bobby’s greasiest burger since waking up at 4 A.M. in panic mode. Sam is dead. So is Azazel. Somehow none of that has sunken in quite yet, but he knows that none of it is right. Sam is supposed to be alive, and he and Dean and dad were supposed to kill the demon together. It's all wrong.

Jo knocks on the doorframe twice. He looks up at her, blinking as the sun hits her hair through the open window. Well, maybe it's not all wrong, Dean thinks as he sees her. A lot of people are still alive—people he cares about; people he's saved. That's not nothing, but it feels hollow.

“Dean?” Jo asks. “You ready?”

“It’s time?”

“Almost,” Jo says. “Mom’s picky.” Jo enters the room and settles on the bed next to him. Before he can say anything, she has one hand to his forehead. She makes a tsking sound that is remarkably like Ellen’s noise of concern. “How much did you put away last night?”

“Not enough.”

She lets her hand drop. “You know I’m sorry, right? About Sam.”

Everyone is sorry about Sam. That doesn’t change a goddamned thing. Why couldn’t the Darkness have dropped him in Cold Oak, a little before Jake had decided to get stab-happy? That would have made more sense.

Dean is hungover and exhausted and doesn't want to deal with this shit--but none of that is new, and he never thought to see Jo again, alive instead of a casualty of the latest planet-scale disaster. He forces back something harsh and regards her through bleary eyes. "Yeah, I know."

Jo grips him in a one-armed hug for a few moments, then stands up, brisk and businesslike. "In your own time," she says. "We can wait a while." She leaves the room.

As soon as she is gone, Dean feels he can't wait much longer alone. Putting this off won't make Sam less dead, and a mutilated corpse is no barrier to resurrection. He's proof of that several times over.

The day is overcast and looks like rain, but it's warm and the ground is dry. South Dakota in a nutshell: where even the sky clenches too tight for tears. Sam's body lies upon a pyre of wooden logs about a hundred feet from Bobby's front door, wrapped in white linen. His face is hidden. Jars of gas and kerosene dot the edges of the pyre.

Dean feels two tears--just two--escape the corners of his eyes. He says nothing as Sam’s body burns to ash. Much later, drunk off his ass thanks to the surprising encouragement of Ellen and Jo, he passes out, to awaken on Bobby's couch around 3 A.M. with Jo, Ellen and Bobby sprawled around the living room in various states of sobriety and undress. A digital clock on the side table appears unnaturally bright in the dark. As he drifts to consciousness, the layer of numbness covering his senses falls away for a moment. He closes his eyes and breathes.

He'd expected to feel empty, and in that he has not been disappointed. However, he hadn't expected to feel lonely--not with all that was left of his family surrounding him. A chill that can't be explained by his hangover or the loss of Sam grips him and won't let go. He is the wrong Dean on the wrong timeline, and his most important family is dead, or gone.

Sam is dead. So is dad. Bobby is broken—more broken over Sam than Dean recalls him being the first time around. Castiel is not here, and can't be. Though he tries to see it in terms of a fair trade—after all, he gets the universe saved, Bobby and Ellen and Jo alive, if damaged in the way that they all are damaged—it doesn't feel like enough. 

He doesn't know if he passes out or goes back to sleep, but when his eyes open again Ellen is shaking his shoulder and Bobby is shouting something about angels from the kitchen.

Dean sits up slowly, recalling, for a brief moment, the face of Frank Devereaux--a man he'd technically never met. The memory sits close to the death of Bobby in his mind, so he doesn't choose to linger there, but he remembers how to fake a smile. Be professional. Do it right--or don't do it.

***

Bobby's kitchen shouting is explained by the general ransacked appearance of the space. Papers are scattered on every available surface and all over the floor; wind kicks in through the open window. Dean shuts the window hastily and bends to pick up some of the papers. "What's this?" he asks. "Spring cleaning?"

Bobby doesn't dignify that with a response, but his eyes are wide and harried--and a little bloodshot, too. Dean guesses that he hadn't slept well either.

"Somethin' broke in," Bobby says. "This is some of my research on angels. Some of it is missing."

Dean's eyes flick to the mess of papers and he almost asks Bobby how he can be so sure, but checks himself. Bobby is like Sam when it comes to research: meticulous to a tee. He would know exactly what was missing.

"You think angels did it?" Dean asks. Castiel may have found a way in. He'd always been devious that way; opening doors that couldn't--or shouldn't--be opened by regular means.

Bobby's shoulders hunch. "My first thought," he says. "But based on what you've told me, if that was the case we'd be dead."

That's likely; Castiel had seemed in a smiting mood when they'd parted, and angels did love their smiting. Dean knows that angels aren't the only ones that could be responsible for this, but says nothing, allowing Bobby to freak out over the clear violation of his personal space.

If an angel had broken in, they would be dead by now--or captured. What--or who--else would have broken in, stolen papers and left everyone alive?

"I'm building the damn panic room," Bobby mutters. "It's time."

***

Three hours later Dean is standing in one of Bobby's garages with sweat slicking his shirt to his back. His dad's leather jacket has been discarded God knows where, and the cut of the welding mask into his forehead is beginning to hurt. Dean has been shearing sheet metal into lengths based on Bobby's exact specifications for what feels like an eon, though it can't have been more than an hour. He appreciates the work the Bobby from his time must have put in, but that doesn't make him resent the difficulty any less.

Still, it is a distraction from what had been a bizarre and depressing twenty-four hours, so Dean doesn't complain--at least aloud. He stacks the last cut sheet alongside its brethren, tries to wipe his forehead and encounters the welding helmet.

"Next step," Bobby says gruffly. "You can take a break, Dean."

"How about you coat it in salt?" Dean says, swiping over the helmet with clumsy gloved fingers. He is seeing the panic room rise before his very eyes now--the material he's been cutting is gunmetal in color and familiar--and the sight puts him a little ill at ease. Bobby’s house is becoming more like the one he remembers—and in the world he remembers, Bobby is dead. 

"I was gettin' to it," Bobby says. "We can't all do ten things at once, and first these edges have to be squared and prepped so they don’t slice your femoral open."

So Dean helps Bobby smooth edges, salt the iron and fit it to the walls, largely in silence. He'd spent the hour after Bobby's freakout looking through books about resurrection, but he hadn't found anything that didn't require terrible, potentially earth-ending sacrifice, so he'd resolved to keep looking when he was fresh--or at least fully sober. His next logical thought had been to help Bobby with his project, though he hadn't realized that operation of machinery was a requirement at the time.

"You sure you're all right, boy?" Bobby asks after a long quiet spell, frown gathering the wrinkles of his forehead. "You ain't been the same since..."

Since the night Sam died. Yeah, Dean knows that--because he isn't the same Dean. "I'm okay, Bobby," he says. "'S good to keep busy."

Bobby makes a disapproving huff. "Take a breather, Dean," Bobby says. "I got this for now."

Dean is briefly taken aback. He and Bobby had worked on dozens of junkers and projects together—in his own time. He realizes with a jolt that he has considerably less of a relationship with this Bobby than he'd had in his correct world. In this world, Bobby Singer and John Winchester had despised and grudgingly respected one another, and though Bobby had watched over Sam and Dean as children at infrequent, if oddly peaceful, times, Bobby still doesn't know either Sam or Dean well as adults.

A different sort of man might wonder at what point the differences in someone became so great that they were another person entirely, metamorphosed, but Dean doesn't care to examine that question. He is here now, presumably because the Darkness wants to torment him in the guise of helping him.

That isn't entirely fair. Monsters didn't generally understand humans, and neither did gods.

Dean takes the breather Bobby suggests, stripping off the welder's helmet, showering, and changing into a clean shirt; but he doesn't rest. He goes back to the library to look for resurrection spells that won't destroy the universe.

In his old life, this would be the moment when he calls Cas. He catches himself close to praying, palms twitching toward one another, but he clenches his hands into fists and keeps reading.

***

Dean snaps awake at 4:32 without knowing when he fell asleep or where he is. He had heard something, and after blinking twice he is aware that he’s fallen asleep in Bobby’s library—in Bobby’s least comfortable chair, which his ass is going to thank him for later.

Though he’d definitely been awakened by a noise, everything is silent now, and for a moment he considers that maybe stress and his native paranoia had awakened him for no reason. His eyes start to close of their own accord—uncomfortable chair be damned—when he hears it again.

The flap of wings.

An angel is here.

Dean sits up in his chair and turns just in time to see Castiel appear in the corner of Bobby’s library, looking perturbed but not in a particularly smiting mood. His eyes lock on Dean in the dark, and he shifts his balance forward as he says, “Hello, Dean.”

Too familiar. Dean blinks again and is half-convinced that he's dreaming. His terror, faster than his brain by three seconds, already has him backing up and away, against one of Bobby’s bookshelves.

“We were introduced the wrong way,” Castiel says with seeming effort. 

“I’ll say,” Dean mutters under his breath.

“However,” Castiel says without missing a beat, “the warding around this place is making it—difficult—” 

Dean’s shoulder blades press into the wall. Without preamble—and without the flutter of wings—Castiel disappears.

Dean waits a few seconds before letting out a long-held breath. He shifts forward, away from the wall. Apparently the warding works, though he'll need to check it again to see how or why it failed, however temporarily. Then he hears from just behind him, very close to his ear: “I didn’t intend to scare you.”

Dean is already facing away from Castiel; he uses his position to push forward and put Bobby’s table between them. Dean faces Castiel squarely; there is no sense in running, not again. He should have known better trying to keep Castiel out with methods that Castiel himself had taught him.

Castiel has his angel blade out, but he isn't looking at Dean; as best Dean can tell, he isn't looking at anything at all.

"Take down the warding," Castiel insists, batting at something Dean can't see with the blade.

Dean backs up another step, away from the sharp point of the angel blade, and regards Castiel with narrowed eyes. "What are you fighting?"

"A spirit," Castiel answers. "It doesn't want me here and I can't go—" Castiel's explanation is cut off by a particularly violent screech, and Castiel goes down on one knee.

Dean doesn't think about it: he doesn't need to. The salt is on the table in front of him; Bobby has stashes of pure salt all over the house. Dean grabs a handful and throws it at Castiel. The screech comes again, fainter, and Castiel straightens up, blade in hand.

"It may come back," Castiel says. "Take down the wards in this room."

There are only two pieces of warding magic in this room: one a sigil to keep angels out, which he must have drawn wrong considering that Castiel isn't disappearing every two seconds, and a banishing sigil near the door in case any of the other warding on the outside of the house failed—as it obviously has.

Dean unsheathes the knife in his boot and cuts through the keep-out sigil, but leaves the banishing sigil alone. For all he knows, he might still need it.

In the calm that follows, Dean sees Castiel's shoulders tense, and finds himself mimicking his body language. His body has outrun his brain; just because Castiel hasn't threatened him yet doesn't mean he won't. His knife comes up, level with Castiel's throat, and Dean squares his shoulders. "Warding's down," he says. "You have two minutes."

Castiel frowns. "Until what?"

Dean indicates the banishing sigil on the far wall near the door. Castiel lets out a breath that sounds oddly like exasperation; then he faces Dean head on, angel blade still out but kept low. "That's not the only magic here," Castiel says, his eyes flicking to the corners of the room.

"Well, I'm not throwing out any of Bobby's spells," he snaps back easily, but without venom. He and Cas are standing in the same room, and neither has actively tried to kill the other yet, and they are talking. Dean chooses to take this as progress.

"Very well." A crackle like static sounds behind Castiel; Dean's tension ratchets up a notch higher, but he doesn't move. "I am not here to harm you. I was summoned here."

Summoned? Dean hadn't summoned Castiel; he hasn't even prayed for him—though he's been tempted. While Dean is working out who the summoner could have been, Castiel continues, "After dispensing with the demons, I sought to find you in case there were additional demons on your trail."

"Why?"

Castiel's perpetual frown becomes fractionally deeper. "I am an angel on earth. Demons are—" He pauses, tilting his head back and forth before straightening up. His expression becomes grim. "I do not like demons. I did not intend to scare you, but until I had finished with them I could not tell if you had summoned the demons or not."

That's right. The last time around, in Dean's true time, he had summoned the Crossroads demon. This time, all the demons had come themselves. He wonders if they'd been there watching the first time, and kinda really hopes they hadn't.

"So let me get this right," Dean says, holding up his free hand palm parallel to the floor. "You started off blaming me for getting attacked by demons, but don't anymore?"

Castiel hesitates, then nods. "Yes."

"And you decided to break into my house and tell me you don't blame me for something I didn't do?" Dean's almost smiling. His odd sense of calm gives him a moment of clarity. He sees himself and Castiel, as if from outside, weapons drawn, professing peaceable intentions—and nearly laughs. He guesses that it beats stabbing the guy like he had the first time they'd met in person in his other life.

Castiel doesn't answer him in words, but makes a little shrug of uncertainty, shoulders moving up and down. Dean waits a moment and lowers his hand incrementally, setting his angel blade on Bobby's table. "Truce?" he asks, sounding more tentative than he likes. 

Castiel takes one step forward, keeping his weapon at his side. Dean lets out a breath he wasn't aware of holding, then steps forward as well. 

A thin creak from the floorboards sounds behind him. Dean turns to see Bobby’s bloody hand hit the banishing sigil Dean had painted on the wall. At the same moment, he yells, “Wait!” It comes too late; Castiel flashes out in white light.

“Isn’t that the same angel as before?” Bobby asks. “Or do they all look the same?”

***

Dean does his best to explain Castiel to Bobby, but he is limited in how much he can say. He still isn’t entirely sure that this version of Castiel is to be trusted, but he definitely hadn't attacked Dean—and Dean doesn't think he wanted to, either. No; he is more concerned about the invisible force Castiel had encountered. And the other thing (maybe the same?) that had broken into Bobby's kitchen and stolen his notes. 

Because the situation is complicated and he still isn't fully recovered from his post-funeral binge, Dean decides to settle outside with his dad's journal and take stock of what he knows so far. The journal rests easily in his lap, its leather curved into his knees; he breathes in the old-paper and whisky smell as he steadies his pencil and watches the sun come up. A glass of water—forced on him by Bobby—sits neglected on the wooden porch. He'll drink it later, after he's done puzzling this out.

It's times like this when he values Sam's analytical mind most highly: his ability to piece together evidence and explanation in a logical order and way. Dean doesn't consider himself dumb, exactly, but considers most of his intellectual strength to be instinctive and experience-based. Well, he is experienced with monsters—the bigger the better, generally—so he starts there.

The Darkness sent him here—memory intact, for whatever reason—to give him "what he needed most." That is the seed of this. He pokes at his memories of the Darkness as if at a loose or broken tooth; his connection to her has never been comfortable, even when she'd been wearing an infant. And he is troubled by the fact that as a monster, she had only arrived at her desire to be generous after being battered, bruised and attacked—over and over and over again. 

The idea that this is some kind of test presents itself to him for inspection. He has his dad's journal open to a blank page in the back, and he sets out possibilities in the left margin with a pencil, trying not to examine himself too hard. Sam is—was—the pencil-pusher, not him.

Say this is a test, and if he passes, he will get what he needs most. That is so logical that he nearly dismisses it out of hand; while the universe often orders itself to the will of Sam and Dean, it usually does so in a roundabout and unexpected way. The second possibility is that this isn't a test, and the thing he needs most is already here. On that front a few related ideas clamor for attention: Bobby, Cas, Ellen, Jo. Hell, the freaking world. But no Sam, and if there was ever one thing Dean needs, it's Sam. The second possibility also explains why he hasn't had complete control of his movements; something is guiding him toward something else, but he doesn't know what it is.

He takes the focus off himself for a moment, breathing deliberately, and records what he knows of the situation. Sam is dead—capital D dead—and he and Bobby don't know one another well yet. He and Cas don't know one another at all, except as fellow demon-killers. Bobby's house has been ransacked by an unidentified force; Castiel was attacked by a ghost in Bobby's house. Dean feels with his instinctive intelligence that the two occurrences are related, but he isn't entirely sure how. And how did Bobby's house have a haunting, anyway? Bobby is a hunter! In this timeline, he's a far better hunter than Dean.

Dean feels a headache coming on. He sets his pencil aside and closes the journal. Returning to his room, he collapses on his bed, exhausted yet oddly focused. He hasn’t really broken down over Sam yet—he hasn’t broken down, period—and he finds that incredibly strange. Palms curling, he recalls slamming Baby with a crowbar until he'd broken part of her frame after his dad died, but he hasn't done anything like that in the past few days.

He knows himself well enough to know that something should have snapped. One bender and sympathetic relatives do not encompass his entire grieving process; they never have before.

"I've been modulating your emotions since yesterday," Castiel says matter-of-factly, voice coming out of nowhere. "You seemed to be in distress."

Dean sits up, instantly alert. Castiel had appeared—far too close, as was his wont—at the foot of Dean's bed. Dean glares at Castiel. He is starting to miss the days when he'd prayed and Cas had failed to show up. 

At least he has an answer to why he’d been feeling so numb—and how he had managed to stay so focused despite Sam’s absence gnawing at him like a gaping wound. Still, this calm is artificial; fake and too much like the bizarre mind-reading angels could do (and that Dean hates). 

Dean passes one hand over his eyes and says, "Then let me be in distress, okay?" 

Silence. Dean peers through the gap in his fingers. Castiel's head tilt has officially crossed the line from adorable to irritating. "You want to be in pain?" Castiel asks after a long and somewhat uncomfortable pause.

"Sometimes? Yes."

Castiel gives a slow nod, and at the next moment, the floodgates of Dean's mind open, letting the dammed waters pour through. Dean does not cry--much. He doesn't cry because the Darkness gave him an unbroken world in exchange for Sam. He doesn't cry because Sam is dead and his dad is dead and Cas doesn't remember him. He does not cry, dammit.

***

Dean cries in his sleep. When he wakes up, his pillow is wet, and there is Castiel sitting at the edge of the bed, patiently waiting. He says nothing when Dean jerks awake, but hands him a full glass of water that Dean guesses is from Bobby. Dean grimaces at it, but drinks it; his throat feels like wet sandpaper and his head feels fuzzy, but he refuses to admit (even to himself) that he feels this way because he freaking cried.

The water helps push the headache back, and his breathing is steady; normal. Something broke in his sleep, but he thinks something may have been repaired, too. He feels more like himself.

His dad's journal rests on the bed beside him, still open to his considerations of the previous day. Looking at his notes, he sits up further in bed and swallows a sputtered stream of water as he realizes that there is one explanation for the mysterious thief that he hadn't previously considered.

Sam might be here. Sam could be a ghost. It would explain why some of the research was missing—Sam was always a nerd—and it would explain why he and Bobby were still alive.

It takes all his self-control not to jump up and perform a summoning spell immediately, but Bobby is already pissed about his damaged wall and Dean's general penchant for following him around, so he decides to do the nice thing and wait. It's not like Sam is going anywhere.

He gets up slowly, holding up one hand to indicate to Castiel that he isn't ready to talk yet. He may not ever be ready, but he knows he must talk eventually, probably with Bobby in the room, which will be all kinds of awkward. He takes the empty water glass to the kitchen, cleans it, and puts it back. Bobby is in the kitchen already, but he's reading the paper and smoking; he doesn't appear to want to talk to Dean, or anyone at all. 

Breakfast, then, is dismal. Through a series of grunts and nonverbal communications, Bobby conveys that he is exhausted by his efforts on the panic room and seems committed to surviving on coffee and liquor alone, leaving Dean to forage in the fridge. Castiel remains upstairs while Dean eats—mercifully quiet—and Dean is grateful, for the moment. He knows that putting off important things like Introducing Bobby To The Angel is usually a bad idea, but he has no desire to open that can of worms on no food and burned coffee. He passes breakfast in silence with Bobby, holding in a fierce desire to give the man a resurrection-style hug. This Bobby won't accept that, especially in his turtle-shell state.

After three cups of coffee and toast with a green stain on it that he picks off, Dean stops in Bobby's library to find his dad's journal. Journal in hand, Dean returns to the door to his room and mentally prepares to put together a summoning spell for Sam. After that he should probably put some iodine on his hip; the demon's cut two nights ago had been shallow, and though he'd showered since then, the injury is looking a little green around the edges now. His head is down, pointed at the journal, and he's taken less than two steps into the room before he hits something solid.

Castiel stands in the center of the room, arms at sides, trench coat unflappable. He isn't so much as mussed by Dean having run into him, and he shows no interest in getting out of the way. Dean sidesteps him, clutching the now-closed journal in one hand.

"You're still here," Dean says, surprised.

Castiel shrugs. "Is there another place I should be?"

Good question, but Dean thinks the answer to that is obvious. "Um, Heaven?" Castiel doesn't hang around this long, ever. Unless—

Castiel shakes his head—a little apprehensively, Dean thinks—but says nothing.

Dean's hackles rise. Something is wrong here, and so far, he's been asking the wrong questions. He tries again. "Why are you here, Cas?"

The nickname slips out before Dean can stop himself. Castiel spoke as if he hadn't registered it. "I am not here by choice," he says carefully. He isn't looking at Dean; he is staring off into space a little ahead of himself. The left side of his face twitches; he holds it under control. "After dealing with the demons I returned to Heaven, searching for information. I was told—" He stops, as if catching himself before revealing a secret, and continues, "I was stationed on earth to witness a deal. The other demons were not supposed to be present."

Huh. So the Angel Dicks of Dickishness had watched his demon deal, too. Perhaps they'd planned it. He isn't sure whether he'd wanted to know that or not.

"I couldn't get back in," Castiel says. "I sought revelation—orders from Heaven, but heard nothing." His shoulders slump in a little shrug. "I tracked you to this place, but the warding made it difficult to get in." He frowns. "Your warding is good, though you made many mistakes. Is another angel helping you?"

The question sounds so hopeful that Dean doesn't want to burst his bubble. Lying won't help either of them, though. "No," he says. "It's just you."

It had always been just Castiel—Cas. Uriel had been the first to betray his kind and humanity both, but he'd turned out to be a trendsetter.

The only sign Castiel is crushed by the news is the slight clenching of his hands, in and out. He looks at Dean, fixing him with his too-intense stare; Dean looks away.

Castiel cocks his head to the left in a familiar gesture. "I am Heaven's observer, and know many ways home," he says. "They are closed to me. At the last one, I—" He stops again, filtering himself. "The last order I received," Castiel says, his voice a dull rasp, "was to protect the righteous man of Heaven. That," Castiel says, appraising Dean, "is you. And whenever I try to go home, I…" Castiel—or rather, his vessel—swallows. 

Dean doesn't recall Castiel being so expressive in his robot days, but he gets it. Here is Castiel: cast out of Heaven, but not by his own choice. And here is Dean, thrust back into the past by the Darkness without his consent. Sam undoubtedly hadn't chosen to die. If Bobby had a choice, Dean would probably be long gone by now. No matter the universe, free will sucks—not the thing itself, but all the terrible choices that come of it. He's starting to think that there's no such thing as a good choice.

Dean takes a breath and faces away from Castiel. He is seconds away from hysterical laughter, but he holds it in. He wouldn't be able to explain it anyway.

"I need a drink," he says, leaving Castiel standing there, alone and trapped. He has no way to help him, anyway. 

***

Dean comes back from his blackout sitting in a chair in his bedroom. His dad's journal is in front of him and a glass, partially full, is still in his left hand. Huh. He hadn't fallen asleep with a drink in hand since his twenties—which he is now painfully reliving again. Shit. He sets the glass on the floor and pulls the journal up closer to eye level.

Dean hears Bobby puttering around downstairs, likely making coffee, or maybe dinner. As his eyes focus, he feels familiar numbness settle over his senses. He wonders if the Castiel from his future had ever pulled this stunt on him. He recalls, blurrily, not feeling very much after first accepting the Mark of Cain; his rages had come later, when Castiel was not present. The idea makes him uncomfortable. He wants to ask Castiel to let him feel normally again, but he lacks the energy.

He looks up from the journal and sees Castiel sitting in front of him at the foot of his bed in what is becoming his accustomed spot. Looking up also allows more light to reach his eyes, pushing pain into the front of his skull. He has to stop drinking so much. As soon as he has reasons to stop drinking.

“Fuck my life,” Dean says, not bothering to mutter.


	3. Journey to the Fifth Circle

By the time Dean is up, clean, dressed and eating, Castiel has disappeared again. Ellen and Jo had packed up and gone that morning, leaving Dean a stern note and a picture of himself blackout drunk. "Nice," he mutters down at the picture of himself. 

Bobby makes greasy burgers for dinner, which Dean chases down with half a stale Pop Tart and another beer. After his first drink, Bobby rises from the table, pours water from the tap into a cup, and thrusts it in his face. They don't talk. Bobby knows that the subject of Castiel is a thorny one, and Dean (for one) doesn't want to broach it until he's had at least six cups of coffee.

He has just settled down into one of Bobby's better chairs with a book on séances when Castiel appears in front of him, far too close for his comfort.

"I've read that one already," Castiel says. "This is a sophisticated library, for all that it's so small."

Dean suppresses a laugh at what Bobby would think and lifts the book in both hands. "Trying to summon a ghost," he says.

He's lying. He knows how to summon ghosts; he's done it often enough for other purposes. He just wants to prolong the next step a little. Summoning Sam—and being successful—is proof positive that the kid is dead, and he doesn't want to face that yet. And if he has to summon him, that means Sam is somewhere else—and Dean definitely doesn't want to think about that.

He assumes Sam is in Hell, but he could be wrong. Sam might have gone to Heaven; he hadn't been dead long enough last time for Dean to find out. Whatever Dean yanks Sam back from, he doesn't like the idea of it.

"You have an object of Sam's?" Castiel asks, dispassionate and almost bored-sounding. He probably knows where Sam is already. Dickish angels just don't like to share. This Castiel is acting like an odd mix of the one he'd known for years and the way he'd been when they'd just met. It is adding to Dean's time confusion.

Before Dean can answer, the sound of a loose floorboard creaking catches Dean's attention. Bobby stands in the doorway, baseball cap slightly askew. "Oh, you're back," Bobby says, bitterly sarcastic. He stares pointedly at Castiel, then shifts his attention to Dean. "You want me to banish this one again, or should I put the kettle on?"

Castiel's shoulders tense; Dean sees the gleam of the angel blade in his sleeve and carefully steps between Bobby and Castiel. "Bobby," he says, eyes flicking back and forth. "He knows how we can get Sam back."

An exaggeration, but probably not much of one; Castiel had been two steps ahead of him on the summoning spell and it seems clear that he knows what Dean wants to do. He still doesn't have a satisfactory answer to why Castiel is helping in the first place—being stuck on earth notwithstanding—but he's not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, at least not until he gets Sam back.

Bobby's eyebrows raise in an expression of incredulity. "Have I gone senile, or did you miss the bit where we burned that boy?"

"Come on, Bobby," Dean says, hating how pleading he sounds but unable to help it. "You know I can't just let him go. He's my brother."

Bobby bristles and seems about to respond angrily, but then thinks better of it. Bobby takes two steps toward the door where another banishing sigil is drawn; Castiel's face twitches but he doesn't move. "You're desperate," Bobby says. "And stupid. I get it, I do. I went through a lot when your daddy passed—looked through every spell to bring him back, same as you." 

Seeing Castiel remain unreactive, Bobby takes a step away from the door, closer to Dean. Dean opens his mouth to respond, but Bobby is still speaking. "So don't tell me you can't. It doesn't matter. You have to. What's dead should stay dead." Bobby's look is pointed; John had traded himself for Dean. "I'll let ya drink yourself into a coma a few more times before I kick ya out, but I will not be part of any crazy plan to bring Sam back. Clear?"

Dean's been wrong this whole time; this world's Bobby does care about him. He's kept him at arms' length, seemingly, because of John. Sometimes Dean wonders if all his problems could be traced back to just being a Winchester. Dean is frozen, unsure of what to say, when he hears a strangely soft and timid voice a little to his left: "Sam Winchester was not supposed to die."

There is a moment of shocked silence. Bobby finds his voice first. "Come again?"

"Sam Winchester was not supposed to die," Castiel says more firmly. "Azazel wanted him to lead his army of demons. That is what was supposed to happen."

A few more moments pass and Castiel volunteers no more information. Bobby says, "Well, that's just more confirmation that bringing him back is an idiotic and stupid idea."

"No," Castiel says. "If Sam is in Hell, then he is just as dangerous as he would be at the head of Azazel's army. The demons can get to him there." His voice gathers strength as he speaks, as if he's just discovered something really exciting and wants to share. "I can get him out. If I can get him to Heaven, we can keep him safe from Azazel."

Privately Dean thinks that is going too far, but he isn't about to reject Castiel's help—or his sudden enthusiasm. He does feel the need to interject, however, that Azazel is dead. "I killed Azazel," Dean says. "Three days ago."

Castiel appears stunned, then gets that faraway look on his face that tells Dean he is on angel radio—or trying to get a signal, anyway. "I wasn't told," he says slowly, "but that changes nothing. Sam was still not supposed to die. In the absence of the demon threat, shielding him in Heaven would be unnecessary. Returning him to life would be the right thing to do."

Bobby cocks one eyebrow and takes a short swig from his favorite flask of whiskey. "Why?"

"Because the demon war is over," Castiel says. "The demon children Azazel corrupted will return to normal, given time. There is no need to return Sam to Heaven, but he also was not supposed to die. Returning him would align with the natural order."

Bobby snorts. "And that's the only reason you want him saved?" Bobby asks, looking between Dean and Castiel. "To restore balance to the universe, or some shit?"

Dean doesn't bother to answer; Bobby would know he was lying. Castiel nods firmly. Bobby sighs. "Fine," Bobby says. "Gimme a minute and I'll help you."

***

Bobby prepares the séance spell ingredients, muttering all the while. He doesn't trust Castiel, which is logical. He also doesn't fully trust Dean, which twists something in Dean's gut, but it's understandable. How often had Sam done something exactly like this? Trusting this world's Castiel is at least as dangerous as trusting Ruby ever was. Even if Castiel doesn't have evil intentions, his bosses are hardly trustworthy—and he doesn't yet know Chuck on this timeline.

The ease of long practice on Bobby's part means the séance is ready long before Dean has prepared himself to see Sam again, but Dean has no way to slow him down—and slowing down isn't a good idea anyway. Bobby places a brass bowl mixed with herbs and some slick liquid that looks suspiciously like blood on the library's wooden table. Then he reaches into the front pocket of his flannel shirt and pulls out a pencil.

"Sam had this on him when he died," Bobby mutters. "Hopefully it's enough."

"Why wouldn't it be?" Dean asks.

"Well," Bobby says, "this spell only works if Sam's accessible. If he's gone—upstairs or downstairs—it'll be harder to get him back."

Great. Wonderful.

Bobby claps his hands over the bowl and begins chanting in a language Dean vaguely recognizes—not Latin, and not Greek, but possibly Hebrew. Castiel perks up, listening to the chant attentively. When Bobby is finished, the mixture in the bowl flashes. Nothing happens.

Dean waits ten seconds before breaking the silence. "Uh, Bobby?" Bobby fixes a level glare at him. Dean swallows. "Should we try something else?"

Castiel holds up a hand. "Wait. I feel—"

A moment later, all of the lights in the room flicker and go out. "Balls," Bobby says. No ghost appears. "Hope we didn't get the wrong one."

Dean looks from Bobby to Castiel, trying to determine what went wrong. Then the lights flicker again; the overhead light comes back on, revealing Sam's appearing ghost in a halo of light.

"Dean," Sam says. He is smiling and appears far more solid than he should, for the circumstances. "Good to see you." He turns a little and fixes his magnetic smile on Bobby. Bobby waves and stirs something in the bowl. Sam staggers a little but otherwise doesn’t react. 

Dean sees Sam take in Castiel with a little frown. "Who are you?"

Castiel shrugs. "I'm an angel of the Lord."

Sam bursts out laughing. "Dean, where'd you save this one?"

Dean clears his throat. "Sad to say, Sammy, but he's telling the truth."

Sam's face scrunches up in distaste at the nickname he pretends to hate, but when his expression clears it is a good deal more serious. "You—" Sam's ghostly eyes go buggy, making them appear transparent. "Angels are real? I didn't—"

When Castiel doesn't respond, Dean cuts in. "Can we geek out over the angel another time?" Dean asks. "Besides, didn't you attack him already in Bobby's library?"

"Sam was not the spirit that attacked me," Castiel says. "I believe it was the wife of Robert Singer. She seemed displeased to have me here."

"Dude, call him Bobby like everyone else."

"He hasn't given me permission—"

"Damn right I haven't," Bobby cuts in.

"Guys," Sam interrupts, "we're on a limited time scale here."

"Why?" Dean ask.

Sam grins humorlessly. "In case you haven't noticed, I've crossed over, and séances can only last so long." He stands up straighter and faces Dean squarely. "I'm guessing you want to get me out," he says. "I appreciate it, but it's stupid. You should leave me here."

"Do you know where you are?"

Sam nods, a little hesitantly.

"And do you think there's a way out?"

"Maybe," Sam says. "But Dean, it's not worth it—"

"Let me decide that," Dean says. "You said there's a way out. How?"

"I haven't been here long," Sam says, edging away from the topic. "I don't think I'm supposed to be here."

"Where?" Dean asks, cutting Sam off before he's finished. Sam won't distract him with uncertainty; Dean can tell that Sam knows where he is. "Where are you?"

Sam gives him his patented don't be stupid, Dean bitchface. "I'm in Hell, Dean," Sam says. 

Dean isn't shocked—he isn't—but the news hits him with the force of a punch. "How'd you end up in Hell, Sam?" Dean understands perfectly why he belongs in Hell himself, but Sam had always been good and decent. Even in his other world, corruption had come from the outside, not from within Sam—and even soulless, he'd tried to do the right thing.

"Where else would I be?" Sam returns, tone oddly careless. "Yellow-eyes fed me demon blood as a kid. Even if I wasn't a murderer, I'm part demon. He says you sent him back here." Sam pauses to give Dean a genuine smile. "Thanks for that."

Sam's gratitude passes over Dean unheard. Dean wants to argue with the idea that Sam belongs in Hell, but when he opens his mouth Sam flickers and vanishes. Dean's jaw snaps closed. "Sam?" he asks tentatively.

"He is still here," Castiel says. "I feel him. He is being drawn back. He should reappear in—"

Sam solidifies in front of Dean, hands in his ridiculously too-long ghost hair, and lets out an exaggerated exhalation, as if ghosts could get out of breath. "Sorry," Sam says. "Hellhounds. I don't have much time. I think I'm in the fifth circle. That book," he says, pointing to the shelf, "has a spell to get in without opening the door to demons. You'll have to use the Devil's Gate—I assume you still have the Colt?"

Dean nods. It all seems so easy. He wonders what the catch is.

"You can open the door," Sam says. "Without letting anything else out. There's a spell in one of dad's storage lockers. I found it before the hellhounds dragged me down."

"How did you—"

Sam interrupts him before he finishes the question, holding up a sheaf of papers that seems quite real and solid. "I may have—stolen these from Bobby?" He looks at the ground guiltily. His hesitant tone almost makes Dean laugh; at least he knows who had broken into Bobby's now. "That was before I knew you had an angel's help—"

Dean accepts the papers in both hands and grins. "Don't mention it, Sam." He sets the papers aside and looks up. "We're gonna get you out."

"The spell ingredients you need are in dad's storage locker, here," Sam says. He crosses over to Bobby's desk and writes an address on a piece of paper. "I already checked it out. Be careful going in—I think dad expected monsters to try to infiltrate."

Dean nods but can't speak. Leave it to Sam to hack the ghost lifestyle in just a few days—all for the purposes of research.

Sam faces him again, and despite the fact that he is definitely a ghost, he seems reassuringly present and there. Dean hears the familiar growl of a hellhound, and Sam vanishes again.

"He's gone," Castiel says after a moment. "I can't feel any other presence here." He crosses over to the desk where Sam disappeared. "Your brother has written down the spell ingredients as well," Castiel says, eyebrows rising slightly. "Thorough."

"Sam's a total nerd." Dean misses him again already.

***

Dean, Bobby and Castiel regroup in the kitchen. Dean has broken down to cook because Bobby seems incapable and he can't keep going on burned bread and coffee alone. While sausages fry in a pan, Dean rummages in the fridge and tries to formulate a plan.

"So, I get how we'll be going in," Dean says. "We have the Colt and we'll have the spell to make sure no baddies get out of Hell." This time, he adds silently. Last time, even though he and Bobby and Ellen had managed to close the Devil's Gate, they'd unleashed a demon army. That door doesn't strike him as safe, but it is the best way into Hell they have.

"Once we're in Hell, how do we get to Sam?" Dean asks. He stares blankly at the map of Hell pressed flat on the kitchen table. "What, go to the first circle, ask nicely if they'll open the door?"

"That's what I was thinking, yes," Castiel replies, deadpan.

"Wait," Dean says, and he takes a moment before going on because this is messed up. He's been to Hell plenty of times by now, but he's never actually seen a real door. “I didn’t know Hell had an actual door--at least not one that involved not dying or slashing through Purgatory.”

“You have a short memory, Dean,” Castiel says. “I wasn’t thinking of Purgatory. The monsters would chase us down; that’s a suicide mission.” Castiel slams the book in front of him shut. “But you have the key to the door. One of the doors, at least.”

The Colt.

"I do not believe your brother is too deep in Hell," Castiel says calmly. "If I were to hazard a guess, I would say he's in the fourth circle--or the fifth or sixth, for the violent. If your brother was not evil or treacherous, it would be more difficult to pull him deeper. If one person remained outside with the key, others could go through the door without letting Hell escape.” Castiel pauses thoughtfully for a moment. "And I know where the gates between circles are."

"You do?" Bobby asks, incredulous. "Take many jaunts downstairs?"

Castiel shifts a little in his seat. "Not as such," he answers, "but I was part of the harrowing force that made Hell. I remember its layout, generally."

"Then you're the one going in," Bobby says.

"And me," Dean says. "I'm saving Sam even if it is literally the last thing I do."

"All right, idjit," Bobby says. "That leaves me guarding the door."

"And we still need the spell ingredients from your father's storage locker to ensure nothing escapes when we go in," Castiel adds.

The corners of Dean's mouth lift in a humorless smile. "I love it when a plan comes together." Then he smells the sausages in the pan burning, and directs his attention back to the stove.

***

As Dean enters his father's storage locker with only one small scratch below his eye, Dean reflects that there are some advantages to his brand of time confusion. The men who had tried to break in here last time had ended up dead, near enough; Sam's warning and his memory of the place's defenses had made breaking in easy. He wouldn't have been cut at all, but he'd failed to duck a trip wire adequately.

Still, he considers himself getting off light. Also, his dad doesn't seem to have had any more knowledge of angels than Sam and Dean did, so the place isn't warded against Castiel. It is, however, packed to the gills with stuff; he labels his father "hoarder" in his mind and takes a moment to be grateful for his nomadic lifestyle.

He displays the spell ingredients in front of him: powdered azan flowers, blessed candles, a black mirror, dead man's ash—Sam's—and frowns. "We're missing something."

"The black mirror," Castiel says, nodding sagely. "It will provide a door for us so that others may not escape. "

"Where is it?"

Castiel looks around for a moment. "I'll search."

There is a flap of wings and some seconds later Castiel reappears, pointing to the southeastern corner of the room. At first Dean sees nothing there; then he realizes that the reason it is called a black mirror is because it doesn't reflect anything. Behind one rickety shelf and three stacked wooden boxes, he finds the mirror: floor-length with an ornate frame rusting at the edges. Unsettlingly, there is no reflection—of him, or of light, or of anything. Also, it is going to be a bitch to carry to the Devil's Gate.

Dean reaches to pull the mirror away from the wall, but it seems to be bolted there. He tugs a little harder, but when the mirror comes free there is a sickening crack and a whistling sound overhead. For a moment, Dean panics, believing the mirror is broken—and then something sharp and heavy digs into his shoulder from behind, and he goes down.

Castiel shouts his name behind him, but he barely hears it for dizziness; he clutches at his shoulder instinctively. When he gets a glimpse of his hand, it is wet and sticky with blood.

He's bleeding to death on the floor of his father's storage locker, yet he is strangely calm. Some variation of this has happened too many times to count. This is where Sam rushes in, rescues him, patches him up—but there is no Sam, only Castiel. Dean feels himself fold backwards into awkward arms. White light too bright to look at pierces his shoulder, painful, and he blinks. When he opens his eyes, there is no more blood on his hand. He feels himself being lifted, and turns to look at Castiel.

"Are you all right?" Castiel asks, looking panicked. Dean remembers that his last order was to keep him safe, and thinks that that's the only reason why he looks so much like Sam would at this moment—terrified of losing him.

"Fine," Dean says, shrugging his repaired shoulder. Now that he's more or less healed, he is able to see the thing that nailed him more easily. "A boat anchor, dad?" Dean asks aloud. "Really?" White, sharp, and deadly, it had been keyed to the mirror so that anyone attempting to steal it would be hit. Dean had been lucky not to have been facing the mirror head-on, or the anchor would have caught him between the shoulder blades.

"Your father was a paranoid man," Castiel remarks without inflection.

"Understatement," Dean says, running fingers over his shoulder—the left, he notices with a start.

"Is something wrong?" Castiel asks as the silence drags between them.

"No, nothing," Dean says. "Sorry. Just thinking." That shoulder feels strange without the scar that Castiel had put there, but of course he can't tell him that.

Dean arranges the spell ingredients, including the mirror, on and around the storage room's central table. "Let's load up," Dean says.

"Are you sure this will work?" Castiel asks, sounding slightly unsure.

"Why?" Dean looks at Castiel. "Is there a problem?"

Castiel's shoulders slump fractionally. "The spell appears sound. We have not considered what will happen when we enter Hell. It will be," he says, pausing as if considering words, "unpleasant for you. It is designed to be unpleasant for humans."

Dean shrugs, unconsciously mimicking Castiel's body language, and offers up a tentative but sincere smile. "That's why you're going with me, right?" he asks. "We'll tag team anything that gets in our way."

"Maybe." Castiel hunches inwards. "I have a bad feeling about this."

Dean smiles bitterly, thinking of Star Wars and all the things Cas knew about that Castiel never would. "I have faith in us," Dean says. "We can do this."

He surveys the ingredients before him one more time and takes a deep breath. This is happening. He is going to return to Cold Oak, find Samuel Colt's frontier church and open the door to Hell. To rescue Sam. Bobby and Cas will be with him. For the first time since he got here, he feels a lot like himself.

He finds himself grinning foolishly at Castiel, and swears he sees Cas smiling back.


	4. In Hell

The spell goes smoothly—as well as possible and better than Dean expects; Bobby's even sobered up for the occasion and Dean has never seen him look so focused. Most of the spell ingredients are concentrated in a small brass bowl. Bobby places it before the intricate door, small hole gaping in the door like a suppurating wound. 

Bobby chants in a language Dean doesn’t know—Greek, possibly—and Castiel chants with him, their words falling into a strangely hypnotic rhythm. Dean places the mirror carefully beside the closed door, just to the left of the bowl, and waits as Bobby and Castiel’s chanting fades.

As soon as he stops, Bobby yells, “Now, Dean!”

Dean pulls the Colt from its holster--an appropriated one, stolen from one of his dad’s old guns in the storage locker--and places it in the hole in the door.

At first nothing happens, and Bobby bends over to check his notes obsessively; then a dull red glow emanates from the center of the mirror. Hellfire, Dean thinks. Damn. Castiel pushes past Dean, steps in front of the mirror, and vanishes. Dean turns to Bobby--to say something, goodbye maybe--but Bobby yells, “Go, idjit! That door won’t stay open for long!”

Dean pivots to the same place Castiel had just been, and feels rather than sees himself move; there is a sensation of being hooked behind the navel and yanked forward. He blinks, and opens his eyes to the red light. He’s alone in an alien world that looks nothing like Purgatory and little like Hell. The landscape is perfectly flat; nothing grows in the dusty earth under his feet, and the perpetual red light has no apparent source, though it reminds him strangely of lava.

Castiel isn’t anywhere he can see. When he spins, he sees no one and nothing, except a shadow in the far distance that he can’t identify.

He is about to call out for Castiel when he hears the flap of wings behind him and turns. “Took you long enough,” Dean says testily.

“I was scouting the area,” Castiel answers. “Limbo is on the edge of Purgatory. There are no monsters here, but that doesn’t mean this place is safe.”

Dean looks at the shadow in the distance. “That Purgatory?” Dean asks.

“No,” Castiel says. “The wall between this place and Purgatory is not visible. That’s the gate to the second circle.”

Dean snorts a little at that--he still isn’t entirely used to the idea that Hell has real doors and gates and everything. Then again, he’s never tried going through Hell via door; maybe there will be fewer complications this way.

“What’s in the second circle?” Dean asks as he starts moving toward the shadow.

“The lustful,” Castiel answers, falling in beside him with a mechanical stride.

“Sounds fun,” Dean answers.

“Not really,” Castiel replies as they walk.

Limbo is boring, Dean thinks. Purgatory had monsters; all Limbo has is a vast expanse of nothing. There aren’t even any birds or insects; aside from him and Castiel, there is nothing alive. As they approach the shadow in the distance, Dean sees it form definition: he identifies a wall, and then a tower. A castle?

“Why is there a castle in Hell?”

Castiel thinks for a moment. “The philosophers like it,” he answers after his pause. “And we are not too deeply in Hell.”

Dean wants to ask what philosophers are doing in Hell, but thinks better of it. He knows God can be a prick about the whole pagan religion thing. He should really have a chat with Chuck about that the next time they catch up to one another.

Limbo continues to be boring: a wasteland with a castle at one end and mist on the other. Until he reaches the castle, Castiel keeping two steps behind him, he doesn't see another soul.

Then the castle is before them, looming large, though all the stones are white, cast reddish orange in the light of this place. A bald man in a long robe stands in front of a large archway with his hand out in front of him in a gesture of forbidding.

“Halt!” the man cries. “Who passes?”

“Castiel,” Castiel answers for them. “And the righteous man.”

The bald man drops his hand a few inches, but makes no move to get out of the way. “Impossible,” the bald man says. “The righteous man was saved from Hell.”

Dean thinks that news travels fast around here, then remembers that Sam may be getting pulled deeper into Hell as time passes. “Well, I’m him, and I’d like to ask you to get out of the way.” That’s as much politeness as he can manage; the thought of Sam in the same kind of torment he'd suffered tugs him forward as inexorably as the will to live.

The old man lowers his hand and glowers at Dean. “We do not suffer the living to pass,” he says. “It’s bad enough business giving the demons the dregs of dead souls. A living one is too great a prize. You must remain here until we devise a way to return you to your body.”

Dean catches Castiel’s eye and sees the glimmerings of a plan there.

“Is that so?” Dean asks, gesturing subtly to Castiel with one hand. “Well, I don’t want to be unreasonable--”

At that moment, Castiel grips Dean’s hand firmly. Dean feels a sense of vertigo like tripping forward. He hears the wings--two beats this time--and he blinks and stumbles up on the other side of the archway from the old man with Castiel’s hand still in his. 

The old man splutters wordlessly, angrily, behind them, but Dean smiles, and there is another beat of wings. He and Castiel pass from Limbo into the second circle.

***

The second circle of Hell is more impressive than the first. Although it is still largely devoid of life, it has awfully angry weather, and that catches Dean’s attention right away. Wind whips at his face and clothes, kicking wet dirt up and onto his skin, into his eyes. Every step forward seems to make the wind intensify, and he wonders what sin merits such a punishment. 

Then he remembers Castiel telling him that this circle is for the lustful, and he shouts, "How does wind punish people for lust, again?" pitching his voice over the gale.

"They are punished by being blown violently back and forth by strong winds, preventing them from finding peace and rest,” Castiel says. Dean is surprised to hear that his voice is low and steady; even his trench coat is unaffected by the wind. Lucky bastard. “Strong winds symbolize the restlessness of a person who is led by desire for fleshly pleasures."

Dean feels the skin of his face peel back in the wind. Even when he’d been strung up on the rack, he’d never felt sensations like this before; it feels like his skin is peeling off of his bones from the inside out. “Can this hurt me?” he asks Castiel. After all, he’s bodiless here--just a soul.

“It can harm your soul if we remain here too long,” Castiel answers, and though he appears nonchalant and unruffled, a twitch under his left eye reveals at least some underlying unease. “Dean. Do you see the next gate?”

Dean peers through the wind-torn landscape and sees nothing but dust and more wind. “No,” Dean answers.

Castiel’s shoulders slump. After a moment, he asks, “Do you trust me?”

Dean thinks for a moment. He trusts Cas implicitly. Castiel is similar, but not the same. Something in his leg pulls painfully, and he realizes that the wind has torn through his clothing. Even if his appearance here is merely a projection of his mind, he doesn’t take that as a good omen. “Kinda,” he answers truthfully. “Enough.”

He trusts Castiel enough to keep him from dying, but he only trusts Cas to save him. He doesn’t know how to put that in words.

“This place is a maze, and you are a lustful man,” Castiel explains dispassionately. “I will need to touch your soul to cleanse it.”

“Will it hurt?”

“Yes.”

“More than this?” he asks, the wind biting through to his other leg.

“Possibly.”

Dean groans internally. “Do it,” he says.

Castiel reaches out one tentative hand, and Dean closes his eyes, expecting the bright blinding light of soul magic, but that isn’t what he gets. Instead, a low thrum of hot energy beats through him from his toes to his head, leaving him feeling like he’s on fire--or, more, like he’s just gotten out of an extremely hot steam room. There is no light, only heat and something under it that feels like reassurance. Dean feels choked, like he can’t breathe, and the heat takes on an edge that is painful--

And then it’s gone, and Castiel is in front of him, appearing haggard and windswept but unharmed. 

“Dean,” Castiel asks in the aftermath of his soul’s cleansing. “Do you see the next gate?”

Dean turns away from Castiel. He looks ahead a few dozen yards and sees an archway similar to the one that had led here from limbo. He nods. “Yes,” he says. “I see it.”

***

The third circle also has impressive weather: a raging ice storm that causes pits to open up in the ground. Castiel is out in front of him now, walking slowly and muttering to himself as the pits become wider and there are fewer and fewer places to stand. 

As they pick their way through the frozen wasteland, the ice falling from the sky becomes sleet, and Dean feels himself soaked and shivering. He remembers Castiel describing Hell as “unpleasant” for humans, and so far he hadn’t been wrong. He is only surprised that he hasn’t seen any demons yet. He keeps expecting to see the torture racks of wire and chain where he’d been held until he’d broken, but he hasn’t seen them; not yet. They must be deeper in Hell.

However, the third circle does finally have one thing Dean expected--people. Other souls. Dead ones, presumably, but they are here, and there are many of them. He sees them as he and Castiel make their way over the pits, and he stops before one--a woman--and tries to lift her up; grab her hand so that she can stand upright in the storm.

Castiel shouts a warning too late; as soon as Dean touches the woman, an earth-splitting shriek tears out of the sky, and Dean and Castiel are suddenly face-to-face with a wormlike creature large enough to swallow both of them whole. Its gray body twists out of the ice pits below, glimmering in the wet weather like freshly fallen snow—incredibly angry, possibly flesh-eating snow.

The worm's appearance had been too quick to be natural, almost like the woman had summoned it. Dean takes a huge step back, away from her; the woman shifts her grip to hold his arm even as he twists away. The worm-monster follows the movement. Its huge jaws are open, revealing two rows of extremely sharp teeth filed into points.

Yep. Definitely flesh-eating. 

“Let go of her hand,” Castiel yells urgently, “now!”

Dean shakes her off, and the creature backs off with a sound like a groan, curling up and becoming almost invisible in the gray-and-white slush of the ice pits.

“What was that?”

“It won’t hurt you if you don’t bother it,” Castiel answers in a clipped tone. “Come on.” He actually grabs Dean’s hand, and Dean jerks instinctively to make him let go. Then he sees Castiel’s crumpled expression and changes his mind. He lets Castiel take his hand again.

After a moment, Castiel links their fingers together, and Dean lets him, because the twitch under his eye is gone. 

“Thank you,” Castiel says. He steps in front of Dean, maintaining contact, and continues making their path through the waste. “That creature unsettles me as well. Of all the circles, I hate this one most.”

“Why?” Dean asks idly, glad that angelic spirits and human souls don’t sweat. That would make such a long hand clasp even more awkward than it already is. Though he’s so cold right now that sweat would probably be some kind of miracle.

“It is unfair,” Castiel remarks. “More so than the others. Others have companions in suffering. At least, they are permitted not to suffer alone.” Castiel looks up for a moment as if looking for something, then says, “Here is different. Even in the wood of suicides, they can talk to one another. Here, there is no one.”

“No one” echoes in the rain-sodden valley, and Dean feels himself shiver.

“What did they do?” Dean asks. “These people?”

“They are gluttons,” Castiel answers. “The slush symbolizes personal degradation of one who overindulges in food, drink and other worldly pleasures, while the inability to see others lying nearby represents the gluttons’ selfishness and coldness.” Castiel frowns. “I do not know how they are expected to learn better, without companionship.”

Dean isn’t either. He holds onto Castiel’s hand until they reach the next gate. The red light that hangs over this place is getting brighter as they go, and Dean swears he can feel heat up ahead.

***

“Okay, this place doesn’t seem so bad,” Dean says as they pass through the archway of the fourth circle. For one thing, it's warm: the red illumination burns hot enough to be comfortable, and it isn't raining. There are also no vast pits opening up to swallow people whole, no worm-monsters that he can see, and he thinks he sees a few people walking—actually walking—on the path in front of him.

"Looks can be deceiving," Castiel says. "Come on."

Dean follows him forward and hears the sound of loud music—grungy garage-band style music, but hey, he didn't even know they had music in Hell. He strays a little away from Castiel and bumps into a wizened old man with huge jowls who is holding a frothy beer aloft.

"Good music," the man says. "Wanna pint?" He holds out his beer.

Dean reaches for the drink with an easy smile.

Suddenly there, Castiel knocks the glass out of the old man's hand, and the man hisses, drawing back. Castiel gives Dean a reproving look.

“C’mon,” Dean says, “it’s just one drink. Live a little.” This place is actually downright pleasant, compared to the previous circles.

Castiel rolls his eyes. “Do you remember what the philosopher said when we entered?”

“Um, some variation of ‘you shall not pass’?”

“Not that,” Castiel answers. “He told you this place is dangerous for living human souls. If you had drunk a single drop of that--or eaten anything--your soul would remain here. Forever.”

Dean scoffs a little at that and prepares to laugh, but the expression on Castiel’s face makes him hold the laugh back. He can’t tell if Castiel looks that way because of his orders to protect Dean or because he actually cares about Dean in some way, but either way, Dean feels intimidated. He’s not allowed to have other people care about him for any reason. That’s how they get killed.

"This is the circle of greed," Castiel says. "The dead here overindulge—overspend—until they exhaust themselves. Most of the time they are so self-absorbed that they do not notice others, but I am not surprised they made an exception for you." Castiel squares his shoulders. "Walk ahead of me, and talk to no one."

"Okay, okay," Dean says. "Settle down." They settle into the same easy rhythmic walk of Limbo, the way clear except for a few straggling men, and even fewer women. Many of them are wearing robes and headgear that denote them as religious people, and Dean frowns. "Why are there so many nuns here?" 

"Some become so consumed by their search for God that it consumes them," Castiel says. "And others use their power in the church to amass wealth and harm others." Castiel tilts his head to one side, thinking. "Perhaps the church tends to attract the wrong type of person. It is easy to abuse such power."

"Deep," Dean says, and they keep walking, the archway of the fifth circle coming into view again. If Sam and Cas are right, then Sam's soul will be there.

***

The heat Dean had felt in the fourth circle is becoming blazing. As Dean steps into the fifth circle, the temperature rises to sauna levels, and the light level drops low and red and brooding. Dean sees chains suspended above his head and realizes, with a shock, that he is in the circle he'd spent so much time in—the rack is here, somewhere. He shudders.

"Are you all right?" Castiel says. "Sam is here. I feel him." Castiel points a little ways ahead. "Follow me."

As if he could do anything else.

As they progress, the darkening gloom grows deeper, and shouts and screams grow louder. A little ahead of him, Castiel freezes; Dean does the same and asks, "What's wrong?"

Castiel clutches something in both hands--the map of Hell from Bobby's kitchen table, Dean sees--and looks at it as if he's lost.

Well, shit.

Castiel appears calm, but his voice trembles as he says, "I've never been here before."

Dean stands there, staring at him, a little stunned. Castiel must have rescued him from here in his other life—and he must have been like this then, too. But then Dean corrects himself. In his old life, Castiel had gotten help from other angels. Here, all he had was Dean.

Dean reaches back in his memory and says, "The fifth circle is for the violent, right?"

Castiel nods.

"So I hear shouting that way," Dean says, pointing east.

Castiel gives him a look of annoyance. "Do you really think it a wise course of action to go traipsing into the middle of a battle? In Hell?"

Well, when he puts it like that… Dean shrugs. "What battle?"

"Battle is waged perpetually here," Castiel says. "They never stop."

Dean wonders why he'd never gotten to fight here, then realizes that the demons' plan had always been to break him. Shame. Taking down some monstrous people might have been fun, the first six or seven dozen times, anyway.

"You have any better ideas?"

Castiel shakes his head. "If I scout ahead I have to leave you here, and that's something I can't do."

"Then let's go." Dean steps to the left of him and heads toward the sound of the shouting.

He doesn't have to go far; an open-air arena with wagons for walls pops up in middle distance. He hadn't seen it before because this place is so badly lit. Hell's population seems to be growing by the circle, because there are thousands of people milling about in this arena—so many that he can't see the end of the crowd. Every few seconds he hears gasping or cheers: the sounds of an audience reacting.

Dean joins the throng, making sure Castiel is still behind him.

"You take the left," Dean says, moving right.

"We shouldn't separate," Castiel says. "This place is dangerous, and not just for you." He looks up apprehensively, as if he is expecting an attack.

"We'll never find him if we don't split up," Dean says, then looks for a landmark or something to navigate by so that they can find one another in case of separation. There is a skinless head burning on a pole in the center of the arena; in its light, the black chains above take on a grim cast, and Dean swears he can hear himself screaming, "Sam!"—

Then he blinks himself back to the present, and points to the head. "I'll meet you in the place that guy's looking in ten minutes." Although—or perhaps because—the head is skinless, the eye sockets are deep, hollow and pronounced; easy to spot even from this far off.

"And if I can't find you?" Castiel asks, pitching his voice over the din.

"I don't know," Dean shrugs. "Angel mojo? Do I have to think of everything?"

A man shoves rudely between them, jeering wordlessly, and Castiel glowers, though Dean is not sure who he's glowering at. Finally, he says, "Very well," and he points to the head. "Ten minutes. And if we don't find Sam, we'll go."

Dean wants to argue, but the man they'd seen before is just at the edge of the crowd; as they move, people move between them, and Castiel is already ten feet away. Dean keeps his eye on him as best he can and works his way in toward the center of the arena.

They are just cleaning up the last fight: blood and hair and other unidentifiable fluids everywhere. A woman with breasts hanging to her waist and a scar where one eye should be appears to be overseeing the proceedings; she smiles occasionally, revealing rotten gums and no teeth. When she speaks, she spits. 

She announces the next fight as Dean approaches the front: "Azazel vs. Sam Winchester."

Dean doesn't have time to be stunned. He shifts forward for a better view and catches a glimpse of too-tall limbs and blood-spiked hair. It's Sam, though he's scarcely recognizable as such—in the middle of the goddamn arena. Well, so much for rescue—if he tries, everyone will see. Dean coils his muscles tight and forces himself still.

Sam is facing down someone even taller than him and twice as broad. If this is Azazel's true form and not a borrowed body, then dude is fugly: scarred and burned hairless from top to toe, with eyes like pitch and skin like torn leather. His muscles ripple grotesquely, painfully, as if they are writhing.

Azazel is beefy, but Sam is quick; as the demon's fist lashes out, Sam manages to avoid the blow, ducking between Azazel's legs and taking out one of his knees.

"Good job, Sammy," Dean says under his breath.

Azazel's eyes flash, and Dean sees yellow. This must be Azazel's true form—or close to it. The demon reaches for Sam's ankle as he darts between his legs, but misses. Sam springs up and places one solid, level punch to Azazel's sternum; the demon makes to crush his ribs in a bear hug, but Sam evades. Azazel trips over his own feet chasing Sam, going down; Sam kicks him in the head, then springs on it, crushing the demon's head with a sickening squelch.

Azazel is down, and he goes limp, leaving Sam looking bloody but unbowed. Another demon comes into the center of the ring and holds his hand aloft. "Victor!" he shouts, and Sam slumps. Dean guesses that the only reward for beating someone is to fight someone else even bigger. This is Hell, after all. Demons can't die here, no matter how much Sam tries to kill them.

Dean scans around him for Castiel and realizes that he is missing. Dean had been so absorbed in Sam's fight that he'd lost track of him somewhere. It's just his luck that finding Sam is easy, but finding a way out of here will be hard.

As Sam's face crumples and his shoulders sag, he looks up, and meets Dean's eyes. 

To his credit, he does not betray that Dean is there, though his expression of hope is incongruous with his posture. It is that Dean surges forward, into the arena, and Sam is already two steps away from the demon who had held his arm up. They reach for one another, clasp hands, and run.

The only problem is that there's no place to run to. This is Hell; they are surrounded by hordes of bloodthirsty people and demons; the only way that Dean knows to get out is to find the gate, and that is half a mile away at least. People—and, presumably, demons—tear at them as they run, but they don't stop—

\--until they hit a wall.

Huh. Hell has doors and walls. This particular wall is gray, featureless, and taller than both him and Sam put together; with how close the crowd presses, there is no question of them being able to climb it. 

The crowd presses in too close, and Dean clings to Sam until they are forced apart. "Sam!" Dean yells. "Hold on!"

His grip fails, and Sam's bloody face recedes as Dean shouts for him to come back. He is being carried by demons, but he scarcely notices; he's lost Sam, even though he can see him, even though he's right there—

Then Dean feels something sharp bite at his left arm, and he is wrenched away from Sam, up and up and up.


	5. (Nothing) Good Comes Out of It

Dean opens his eyes in Purgatory, and he is alone.

He recognizes Purgatory instantly: its smell, its tense under-atmosphere of chaos and panic. He is lying on hard earth; his bed for so long that he still sometimes winds up on the floor in his motel rooms, missing it. The sky above is washed-out and pale, brown-tinged with malice or dried blood. He breathes in, and it feels a lot like being home.

In his first moments of awareness, he allows himself to be grateful for the familiarity of the place, and then he remembers.

Sam is gone. 

He sits up and looks around.

Cas is gone, too. He has Bobby left—but that's assuming he makes it out of this place in one piece.

A twig snaps behind him, and he jumps to his feet, instantly alert—almost as if he never left. He'd spent so much time here that he still returns to it, often, in his dreams. However, there is nothing there, and he realizes that the wind must have caused the sound.

Purgatory has weather, much like the normal world's, but its storms are more terrible because there is no real shelter. The monsters may be less active during storms, but they are also more able to trap and eat anyone unlucky enough to be wandering. Dean searches for a vantage point—a large tree would be welcome; he'd rather be killed by lightning than vampires, and at least he'd see them coming—but this part of Purgatory is oddly flat and blank. There is tall grass, which will provide minimal cover, and, off to the left, there is a stand of withered trees that won't bear his weight.

"Crap," he says. He's in Purgatory, he's in the open, and he's completely alone. At least he's not unarmed; he has his angel blade tucked into his jacket, and its reassuring weight may be the only thing keeping him calm. Dean surveys the area; low hills are behind, with more ahead; he is in a valley, and valleys are bad places to be in a Purgatory storm because all paths out and away lead uphill; wind and rain also tend to gather in the center. There is one piece of good luck: a wide path marked on either side indicates that he's on Purgatory's main thoroughfare: its highway, essentially. Purgatory does have roads--mainly dirt ones made by enterprising monsters--and this looks to be a better-tended one. Dean strikes out in a random direction, keeping close to the wide path, and he hopes he hits cover before the storm begins in earnest. 

He hasn't taken ten steps before he hears a thundering crack. The earth opens before him, splitting asunder as if it were soft like bread; he stumbles backward but doesn't fall. As he regains his balance, he feels a drop of water hit the back of his head. "Fuck," he swears, because he doesn't have any time to find cover now and the dust below his feet is rapidly turning to mud. The first drop lets out a deluge; he is soaked in seconds.

[](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/kullerva/79201692/833/833_original.jpg)

He picks his feet up—boots squelching. There is a man face down in the middle distance, on the far side of the gash that has just opened up in the earth. The clouds move in overhead, red and dark and threatening, but Dean ignores that because he recognizes him.

Dean sprints across the gap as fast as his sodden boots allow and squats down, placing one hand on Castiel's shoulder. "Cas," he says, turning him over. "You okay? We've gotta move."

Castiel lets out a low grunt and stumbles onto his hands. "Move where?"

Dean wants to ask him if they can go back to Limbo from here, try again, but if Castiel's appearance is anything to go by, Dean doubts he has the strength to pull them through it. He's asked too much of this Castiel already, without giving him much in return. He swallows the urgent need to save Sam and says, "Back to earth, right?"

Castiel shakes his head. "I can't."

"Why not?" Dean has to shout; the wind has picked up and a few branches scuttle past their feet. The need to move is becoming compulsory, but Castiel looks like he can scarcely stand.

"I pulled us out, " he says. "I can send you back." He lifts two fingers, and before Dean can step back, he's sprawled outside of Colt's church with the black mirror blank and unreflective above him. Bobby blinks at him as he appears and gives him space to settle as he shivers, cold from Purgatory's rain.

Castiel has sent him back: without Sam, and with their best plan tried and failed. After a moment, Bobby helps him to his feet.

"Where's the angel?" Bobby asks. He tosses an old flannel blanket at Dean; Dean uses it to dry off.

"I don't know," Dean says. "He only had enough juice to send me back." He tries not to think of his other life, when his Cas kept himself in Purgatory as a penance, but by focusing so hard against it, it becomes all he can think about.

"I need a drink," Dean says.

***

Dean doesn't drink, though, because that's not really what he needs. He's restless and irritated and distressingly helpless-feeling; he wonders if monster victims ever feel like this. He and Bobby still haven't left the site of the spell, and Dean is living out of Baby, Samuel Colt's church in plain view. Bobby is parked ahead of him, sitting in one of his rusted old pickups, eating an MRE and reading something in the dim light of a failing reading lamp. 

Although Dean's been outside this church often—more often than he likes, considering that it houses a portal to Hell—he's never actually been inside. Some people, normal people, sought solace in religion and in God. Dean had never prayed to God: not since he was four years old. Besides, Dean knows that on this timeline, God isn't listening. 

Maybe he should try praying to the Darkness?

Dean snorts. He doesn't pray. Not often. Except…well, to Cas. Once or twice. Or maybe more times. He doesn't keep track of that shit. The church is calling like a beacon, and Dean recognizes the gentle pull of coercion behind his eyes. Something wants him to go inside the church, and it's not going to let him go until he obliges.

Dean opens Baby's door and approaches the church. The chipped white door opens with a high squeal when he pushes it forward. As soon as he enters, the pull behind his eyes fades; he has complied with whatever freaky requirement that God or the Darkness or whatever wanted of him. He is tempted to return to the car now, but he thinks it probably doesn't hurt to look around first.

Old floorboards thick with dust creak under his feet. Though most of the pews inside are upended and the altar is falling apart, there is one upright bench near the front. Dim light seeps in through the stained glass windows along the sides, most of which are miraculously unbroken. Dean takes a seat. "If anyone's listening," Dean starts, then doesn't quite know where to go.

"I don't understand," he goes on, because that's honest. "I don't understand why I'm here. Sam shouldn't be dead. I should—" He stops himself. God is likely familiar with his penchant for martyrdom; there is no need to call it out. "I should be with him. It's great having Bobby," he says, "don't get me wrong, and Ellen and Jo, and Cas is even kind of acting like himself—"

He stops again. Castiel has been unusually helpful in all of this. When they'd met years ago, Dean remembers him being more reticent in terms of helping people. Perhaps being cut off from his buddies had caused the change, but Dean doubts it. Castiel only does things if he has a reason.

"Castiel," he says, and pretends he isn't praying. "Why did you send me back without you?" He almost adds 'again,' but that wouldn't mean anything to this Castiel. He understands Castiel's helpfulness—to a point. He probably wants to go home. But saving Dean and keeping himself locked in Purgatory goes against that goal.

The church is silent for a moment. Dean takes it in: the quiet, the peace. Maybe that is all anyone ever really finds in churches. He thinks about sending a prayer to the Darkness, defying her to give him one actual thing that he needs, but he thinks better of it. Dean hates monsters, but he doesn't willingly antagonize them unless he's going to kill them.

Dean sets his hands on his lap and prepares to stand. Then a loud thwap sounds to his left, and Dean pitches backward into his seat again.

Someone stumbles forward behind him, upending the pew Dean is sitting on and sending them both to the floor. Dean slaps his palms underneath him and sits up. Castiel is beside him, sprawled out; Dean helps him to sitting position. 

They sit there on the floor for a moment. Castiel looks only slightly worse than he did when they parted in Purgatory, and Dean is glad to see him, so he pulls him into an awkward one-armed hug. Castiel's face presses into his shoulder, and when Dean pulls back a bit, they're breathing the same air.

"You do this a lot," Castiel pants into his shoulder, and Dean remembers the impromptu hug he'd given this Castiel after he'd saved him from demons.

Dean shifts back further, letting go. "Not really," he says, the stubborn set of his jaw jutting out like a barrier. Castiel had failed to save Sam—they had failed to save Sam—and that fact hangs between them like a pall. No matter how happy Dean is to see Castiel, it doesn't erase Sam's death. And Dean is slightly disturbed that when he'd prayed for Castiel, Castiel had come. It is too much like his old life.

"How did you get back?" Dean asks. "When I saw you last, it looked like you were done for."

"One of the demons we fought attempted to poison me," Castiel says, and he is ridiculously calm—always calm. "I was able to counteract the effects and return. I am sorry if you were concerned."

Dean wants to ask, "You are?", but that would be tantamount to admitting he is concerned, and that just isn't something Dean does. "Well, I'm glad you're back, anyway," Dean says.

They continue sitting on the floor, neither really wanting to move. Dean rests his hands on his knees, and breathes. "So what now?" he asks, needing some excuse to break the silence. 

"What now?" Castiel echoes dumbly, as if he's not really sure either.

"Sam's still in Hell," Dean says. "We need to get him out."

"Ah." Castiel rests his chin on both hands. "I see."

Dean waits, but he doesn't say anything else. "What do you see?"

"Your concern is for Sam, not for…" He doesn't finish the sentence, and Dean has the sense to be ashamed of himself.

"It's not like that," Dean says, even though it is. He's sacrificed everything over and over for Sam; that's just the way he is. It is unfair to Cas, and to everyone else—but he's never really thought Cas cared one way or another.

"Lying is not a skill you possess." Instead of looking angry or even disappointed, Castiel appears amused, almost relaxed. "I am sorry we could not save Sam, but having just gotten back myself, I haven't had time to devise a new plan. I am not a hammer—or a tool with just one purpose."

Dean starts a little at that; he remembers Castiel telling him something similar before, in the life he hasn't lived yet. "Yeah, I know," Dean says, because he can't think of anything else.

Castiel stretches extravagantly, making both shoulders pop. "You should rest," he says. "Humans tend to make better decisions after they sleep."

That's true, and solicitous, but Dean isn't ready to get up just yet. "Why did you even let me do something so stupid?"

"Stupid?"

"We went to Hell. That's pretty dumb."

Castiel frowns. "It was your idea, and Sam's."

"Yes," Dean says, and he slaps one hand on the ground because he thinks this is the most important question: "Why did you go along with it?"

“Why do you think I didn’t tell you not to go to Hell?” Castiel asks, stretching the question out as if he is considering it deeply. The question isn’t rhetorical, but he takes his time answering. He fixes Dean with an intense stare, and for a moment Dean wishes he had the angel trick of reading minds. “My orders were to keep you safe, and Hell is one of the most dangerous of all places," Castiel finally says. "This seems to be the crux of the question. Why I would allow you to go into danger."

Dean nods and doesn't interrupt.

Castiel's shoulders push forward, and his frown becomes a deeply entrenched thing that Dean wants to rub away so that it never comes back. His hands twitch. "When I found myself here," he says, "I had not been to earth in—" He ticks off fingers as if counting. "It doesn't matter. It's been a long time. Everything was new. At first all I wanted to do was go home." He nods a little in Dean's direction. "Then I met you."

He pauses, and Dean is about to prompt him to answer the damn question already when he adds, "And I liked you, though I didn't want to."

"What?" Castiel: always confusing, even when he's explaining himself.

Castiel's frown lifts a bit. "I am an angel," he says. "I serve Heaven, and in a similar way, you serve humanity. I—recognized—you." He stumbles a little over the words, then rests his head on his knees. "Our roles are similar. When you asked to save Sam, you were doing so because Sam also serves as a protector of your kind—not just because he is your family, though that certainly plays a large part." Castiel pauses again and says, "I have a family, too. I would do anything for them—except disobey God. Did you really think I wouldn't understand that?"

Dean wants to say, "You haven't answered the question." He wants to say, "You never understood it before." But Castiel had started to understand people after accompanying Dean to the past and seeing his family—which is something that has now happened, albeit in a different way. 

Dean feels something in his throat close up. "I still don't understand," he says. "Why you let me."

Castiel half-rolls his eyes. He sits up with a frustrated expression, gets his knees underneath him and grips both of Dean's shoulders. “Because it was right,” Castiel says. “Because you are right. Your brother should not be in Hell, and I knew there was no way to stop you. And I--didn’t want to.”

Dean doesn’t know what to say to that. There’s a little of soldier Castiel in that--the good angel footsoldier that always does as his general tells him--but Dean doesn’t want to be that, not to him. Castiel became Cas only when he learned how to make his own choices--not before.

Castiel's grip tightens on his shoulders, and Dean tries, unsuccessfully, to break his hold. More used to having Cas evade his touch than demand it, Dean wonders how much of the current situation is due to their combined failure, and how much to the fact that Castiel is cut off from Heaven, and injured. If Castiel is seeking some form of stability or comfort, Dean doesn't know how to give it to him.

"I wish I could see Sam," he says, resisting against Castiel's grip on his shoulders. He realizes that this could be taken as blame at worst or carelessness toward Castiel at best, so he attempts to lighten his tone. "One more time. If only so I could tell him how much ass he kicks in Hell." 

"I will remind you to tell him when he returns." The side of Castiel's mouth twitches upward, and he lifts one hand, positioning it on the back of Dean's neck, rubbing the warm skin to ease the muscle there. It's strangely comforting. In spite of himself, Dean releases the breath he's been holding, and relaxes a little into the touch. He just hugged Castiel a little while ago; this isn't so different. Hell, Castiel had already touched his freaking soul in Hell, and what's more intimate than that? 

At that thought, Dean jerks a little, but Castiel follows him, making small circles into the base of his neck. This has gone on too long. Dean moves to get up.

Pushing up dislodges Castiel. Dean moves out of his space, but is aware of Castiel's eyes on him, tracking every move. "I guess I should, uh, rest or something," Dean says.

"You should." Castiel stands and positions himself, far too close as is his custom. He looks at Dean without intensity, but with something like pity or concern, and suddenly Dean really doesn't want to go. 

He doesn't know why he does it. He and his Cas were never like this, but he's never getting that Cas back and he's probably never getting Sam back either. Something in his head breaks loose, like a pipe breaking under pressure, and he surges forward, mashing his lips to Castiel's in an uncoordinated movement that sends Castiel back a step and presses Dean's body nearly flush with his.

Dean's brain catches up with his body—not rapidly enough, in his estimation—and he pulls back, stunned. Castiel appears calm as always, though the side of his mouth is faintly red because Dean really missed on that one.

"What was that?" Dean stammers, lightheaded as he lets out the air he'd been holding in too long. By all rights Castiel should have been asking that question. One moment, Dean had wanted to offer Castiel some form of comfort in exchange for his explanation, and the next moment—

Well, he hadn't imagined the two of them kissing. Castiel makes an impatient noise and grips Dean's shoulders again, pulling Dean down to the ground with Castiel landing solidly on top. Everything goes eerily quiet, as if the whole world is asleep and they are the last two left awake.

"Oops." Castiel laughs—genuinely fucking laughs—and kisses him again. Or almost does, but somehow they wind up knocking noses and flinching instead. Dean raises himself up on his elbows and holds his breath, holding still when Castiel makes a slower second pass. Their lips touch, and Castiel presses, and Dean remembers that he is supposed to do it back. He presses forwards into the kiss a little, hesitant; Castiel mimics him carefully, following his lead until Dean has to come up for air. 

As Dean breathes, Castiel nudges his nose against Dean's and lightly brushes lips with him, then stays nose-to-nose, watchful for a signal. Dean doesn't move. "Are you all right?"

It takes Dean a moment to realize he's been asked a question. He's not aroused—given his experience with women, that shouldn't surprise him—but kissing Cas hadn't been unpleasant. He realizes that this Castiel has merged with Cas in his head, which is probably unhealthy, but that's hardly new. "Fine," he answers. In the blur of the moment, he's almost forgotten who kissed who first, and he kinda wants to do it again. Just so he can examine the feel. Before his brain catches up to him again.

Castiel lowers his head, his slightly parted lips an invitation. Dean wets his lips a little nervously, and meets Castiel halfway; if he's not going to shove him off now, then he might as well see where this goes. Castiel tries to push him down, and Dean refuses to budge, but the kiss goes on uninterrupted with shallow, testing moves.

It isn't bad, Dean notices, opening up a little to slip his tongue out. Scratchy and strange when their upper lips meet, but not terrible. Castiel doesn't taste like anything in particular, but that's not horrible either. Dean twitches his shoulders uncomfortably; Castiel's teeth graze his bottom lip, and Dean pulls back sharply, catching his breath. Castiel watches him and waits.

"No biting," Dean says, straightening up a little. He doesn't know what to do with his hands. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

Castiel scratches his head, looking sideways at Dean. "What am I doing?"

Why's he looking at me like I've turned into a demon, when he's the guy asking the stupid question? Dean thinks. Then he remembers that he asked first. "Well, um," Dean ventures, prepared to break into the basic sex talk that he'd given Castiel in his other life…but this is different.

"Don't talk," Castiel says, sounding just a little like he is addressing an idiot. He settles his mouth over Dean's again.

The position isn't really comfortable, but he refuses to give in to Castiel pushing him backwards, so he pushes forwards fully, into the kiss. "It's just a question," Dean grouches, breaking away a little and sitting up, gripping Castiel's hip with one hand and trailing a fingertip up Castiel's spine. Castiel shivers. That's interesting. "It doesn't matter." In this moment, it doesn't. There is nothing arousing about this, not really, and Castiel's reasons for doing it—for going along with Dean's insane lead—are irrelevant. It is all comforting and comfortable and warm, Dean can think about it later. 

Then Castiel presses up close again and lodges a knee between Dean's, snatching a few more kisses while they fight for air. Dean is pressed slightly backward and laughs out of the corner of his mouth; Castiel mirrors the sound and moves back in, settling his smiling mouth warmly over Dean's. The laughter brings a new life to the proceedings, and Dean remembers, almost unwillingly, how he had laughed with Castiel, long ago: the social awkwardness, the ridiculous hunts, the apocalypse. The odd protective glee he'd felt when he and Castiel had been forced to flee the brothel; when Castiel had explained angelic wars to rapt, disbelieving civilians. Castiel always standing too close, always missing the point, always taking things literally. Always coming back to him, from the brink of death and beyond. Though they'd never really done much more than hug before this, he doesn't recall either of them being unwilling to touch, to comfort, to move in—to beat one another, if necessary, with punishing hands, and to patch up and console with kind ones. They'd been friends almost from the beginning. In a happier kind of life, it might even have come to something between them, if…

Well, he's living out "if" right now, and when he puts all the pieces together he's sure he'll be terrified or ashamed or whatever else his self-image requires of him, but he doesn't think about that right now. 

Castiel pulls him nearer, apparently determined not to let him stop, or talk. Half expecting to get thrown across the room, Dean eases up and reverses their positions, settling his weight over Castiel's body, and feels Castiel's knee slide up between his legs, skirting close to his groin. It's strange, tasting Castiel in his mouth and realizing the wealth of things that he had never known about him, to notice the signs that he had never learned to read before. How much Castiel likes to kiss, and how playful his lips and tongue are as they learn and explore. How good it feels when Castiel pulls him down and in, closer, and how this exertion paints Castiel's cheekbones with a blush in soft focus, like a movie star. Castiel doesn't sweat much, but it's all gathered at his temples and in the corners of his eyes, making them gleam like gems. All new. All strange. 

Dean takes a deep breath and turns his head, tucking his face against Castiel's neck. Castiel returns the embrace without complaint, crooking one arm around Dean's back. Dean feels safe in this position: with Castiel, but not looking at him; not confronted with the knowledge of what they are doing.

"Can I ask you something?" Dean wonders, and feels Castiel nod above him. "Have you..." Dean winces and tries to raise himself on his arms, but Castiel holds him still, arm across his back.

"What?" Castiel presses in, squeezing him a little tighter, and brings his other arm into play, firmly embracing Dean in what is becoming a crushing hug. 

"Do you want to do this?" He's assuming he knows what "this" is, which is not entirely fair to anyone involved. He has no fucking clue what he's doing, but he feels like he probably shouldn't be doing it. Everyone he cares about ends up dead, and while physical comfort is familiar enough to him, he'd have bet dollars to doughnuts—or pie—that Castiel's stoic angel façade encompassed the sum total of his physical and emotional needs. Being proven wrong on that is making him uncomfortable.

Dean starts to turn his head, but can't quite find the nerve. Nice and easy, talking to Castiel's neck, and the fit seems just right as they are. He decides against moving at all.

"Yes," Castiel admits after a moment, sounding uneasy. "I would've said, but...you know. You know you." Castiel shoves at him playfully, his hips coming up towards Dean's briefly. "It didn't feel right, before."

Right? It didn't feel right? The words tumble around in his head. "And God doesn't frown on this?" Dean asks. He knows the answer, but wants to hear it; needs to. He's done enough wrong in his life without angering the Almighty Chuck by doing something wrong on accident.

"Angels are genderless," Castiel reassures, "and homosexuality is not a sin, no matter how many humans think so."

Dean takes a deep breath. It's a subject guaranteed to ruin the moment. You didn't start kissing somebody, find out you actually sorta liked kissing them, and then bring up how what they are doing is widely despised as a mortal sin by a vocal if shrinking segment of humanity. "Sorry," he says, because he doesn't know what else to say; and Castiel settles one hand in the hair at the back of his neck, tugging idly.

"You're forgiven." Castiel twists, getting Dean more firmly on top of him. They kiss, and Dean closes his eyes as Castiel demands harder, seeking Dean's limitations with fast, hot kisses. Castiel rubs his leg against Dean's, holding tighter. "Touch me," he finally whispers, his tongue and then his teeth finding Dean's bottom lip, and the kiss moves down his throat. 

Dean gasps, resisting a little. "Touch me," Castiel growls this time, and Dean nods, sliding his hand down the outside of Castiel's leg. He feels Castiel's hands tighten on his back, hears the soft gasp in his ear and feels his stomach flip in response. That sound indicates pleasure, pleasure which he had given, and arousal. Arousal that he is causing. 

Castiel is ahead of him in this, it seems, and when Dean raises his head to look at Castiel, he sees it there too. Wanting? Need? Panic? Dean isn't sure what to make of the burning look in Castiel's eyes. It demands a response, an action, but the meaning is lost on him. He bends down for another kiss, but then he realizes that Castiel's arms are winding away from him, pushing him away with enough force for Dean to know that he's not kidding around. 

Stung and unsure, Dean releases him, taking in so much in that moment that it almost stops him thinking. Castiel is flushed, his skin sheened with sweat. His short, dark hair is plastered to his neck. He is breathing hard through his mouth, and aroused too, obviously swollen in his pants. Castiel is moving away from him to sit on the single remaining upright church pew, shaking his head. Dean sits on his heels and holds his hands in his lap, not sure what he is supposed to do next. 

Castiel sits in silence for a while, and finally offers, "I won't force you to do what you don't want."

Dean blinks. "You don't. You didn't—do that."

Castiel frowns and doesn't look at him. He asks, "Are you sure?" to the empty air.

Dean nods. "It's okay." He thinks it's okay. His brain doesn't seem to be freaking out, which is a good sign. But it might later; he doesn't know. This whole situation is messed up and unplanned and he has no idea what to think of it all, but he knows Cas hadn't forced him into anything.

Castiel's frown doesn't lift, but he does look at Dean. "That was—good," he says softly. "Is it good?"

Dean offers a cautious nod. He gets to his feet and sits next to Castiel on the church pew, not touching, but close enough if Castiel wants to. He didn't intend to make Castiel doubt himself—even if Dean doubts himself—but it seems that this is what he always does. Maybe this is why he and the Cas from his world could never figure things out very far; they are always on shaky ground.

"Good." Castiel lowers his eyes and inches closer. He lifts his eyes, hopeful and shy, and Dean nods again. "It's good, Dean." Castiel hugs him around the neck, more of a lunge than an embrace, and Dean's smile widens as he steadies them both on the pew.

***

If Dean thinks the next morning will be awkward, he is proven wrong. He wakes up in Baby with a crick in his neck the size of Montana, a pissy Bobby and no Castiel anywhere. He drives (with Bobby following) to a dilapidated diner, orders breakfast, and thinks.

While this morning isn't awkward, this situation definitely is, and Dean does not want to consider its consequences. He and Castiel had indulged in a prolonged makeout session the night before, and Dean is not entirely sure where that came from. He does remember kissing Castiel first, and he knows that it was his decision—much though he'd like to blame it on the compulsory force that had driven him to the crossroads, and into the church itself.

Bobby is fortunately quiet, his lack of caffeine making him taciturn, and Dean would welcome the silence if it didn't force him to bounce off the walls of his own head.

Is he gay now? Is that what this means? 

No, that isn't the important question. If Sam were here, he'd glide past that like a summer breeze over the high grass in Bobby's backyard. He is not having a gay panic freakout; he hates those in the movies and Sam would hate it and he refuses to do it. Dean might have some hangups, but few pertain to his masculinity or sexual attractiveness. And he's looked at men before, even if he's never acted on it of his own volition; he's always had plenty of options available. He knows that sexuality is fluid. When he'd been asked to pick one, in high school when the Gay-Straight Alliance had been all the rage, he'd picked pansexual because he likes keeping his options open. Amanda Heckerling, his first real girlfriend, had respectfully approved. Cassie—when he'd told her—had thought him moronic, but then, she was a bit of a Southerner in that regard.

So no; no gay freakout for him. He is having a physical intimacy freakout, though. Generally, touch is bad. It's okay if his partner is weaker, easily overpowered, and only looking for a night of fun—he can handle that, and has, plenty of times. Touch from people who know him, or who want to extract something from him, is bad. This is why it's rare; it's why he hadn’t hugged Sam or Bobby or Ellen or Jo or anyone enough. Touch like that implies actual attachment, and anything that can be attached to can be lost.

He remembers making out with Amanda in high school; he remembers her telling him that her dad had molested her when she was three until she was five; until her mother had stopped working and started spending time at home. 

Dean's hands thread together around the back of his neck, using his elbows to block the world out as he breathes in the steam from his coffee. He'd told her about his dad beating him bloody and raw when he was eight and had left Sam for five minutes to play kickball with the neighbors like a normal kid. He'd told her about spending time in dicey, cheap motels and running out of money and food. Turns out there's a lot strangers will do for you—for a price. 

And Amanda hadn't broken up with him, maybe because she'd found someone broken to match her, maybe because she'd pitied him, maybe (God knew why) she'd actually liked him. Dean hadn't even told Cassie half this shit, because the doe-eyed softness in Amanda's eyes had been too real, like a slice of reality cut off sharp enough to cause a scar. 

And now he is dealing with this shit again—because let's face it, he's never really dealt with it. Hell rubbed it in; it made nothing better. And in subsequent years he's been occupied—saving people, saving Sam, saving the world—no time for self-reflection; no time to examine any hangups because generally his hangups keep him alive. The only other time he's even considered opening his history up for inspection was when he'd shared that awful future with Cas—the one with the Croatoan virus and the dick version of him that was so familiar; so like the father that had beaten the tar out of him without blinking.

Touching Castiel and having it mean something is what's freaking him out. Even if his body hadn't been all the way on board, his brain is already halfway there, and if he keeps down this train of thought he's going to focus on how much he knows Castiel has sacrificed for him, and what that means.

He sits up rigidly in his chair, attempting to derail his train of thought. Unfortunately, all he thinks of is another problem, and that is that Castiel has always been more powerful than Dean. This is obvious, but starting something up with him would alter that power dynamic into something Dean doesn’t recognize. For one thing, he's not dependent on people: not to help him, not to save him, not anything; for another, he doesn't want to be the person that needs help. He remembers that Castiel has found himself in situations where he should have asked Sam and Dean for help, and hadn't, then stops himself because this Castiel hasn't done that yet. He also remembers that angels, when you strip away the righteous veneer, are essentially monsters…and God, does he want to do that? Take up with some monster like that?

"Think any harder and you'll burst a seal," Bobby grunts around an over-buttered stack of pancakes.

"Yeah," Dean says, because this is not something he is going to talk to Bobby about. Ever.

"Where's your halo?" Bobby asks. 

"Dunno," Dean answers. "He made it back, but went somewhere."

"Back to Heaven, I expect."

Ordinarily Dean would expect that too—except that Castiel had said he that is barred from Heaven. He has no reason to lie about that, and every reason to avoid Dean right now, and Dean's panicked screaming internal voice will not shut up. 

He's going to have to talk to Cas about this. But first, he has to find him again—or wait for him to show up.

He eats breakfast grimly, barely tasting the food. He figures it's probably better that way anyway.

***

Castiel shows up nearly a day later in Bobby's library. Bobby is still asleep, or pretending to be; Dean had interrupted him in the middle of a vicious nightmare, and Bobby had been hunkered down since. Bobby's freakout had freaked Dean out in turn, and he had retreated to the library to be as far from Bobby's room as possible—and maybe to do some more research on how to save Sam. Some time later, Dean had fallen asleep in the same uncomfortable chair that he had a few days before, and when he wakes up his spine feels like it is trying to come out through his front for a moment. Then he realizes that he is not alone.

"There is an archangel on earth," Castiel says without preamble or introduction—not even a "Hello, Dean." Castiel goes on, "Cast out, like me. I was looking for him."

Dean is tempted to reply with a smart remark, but his back hurts and he's tired. He coughs, then spits out, "Why?"

"I may not be able to infiltrate Hell," Castiel says, "but an archangel might. They helped form Hell when it was first created, and have more power there."

"You're thinking, convince an archangel into saving Sam?"

"Do you have a better idea?"

Dean shakes his head, then thinks about what other angels could possibly be on earth; he hadn't had any traffic with angels until being brought back from Hell. Not many of them like earth, for one thing, and even Castiel doesn't tend to stick around this long, which is an idea he wants to explore later, or never.

He stands up and stretches. Castiel's answer hits him suddenly, and he nearly slaps himself.

Gabriel. Castiel is looking for Gabriel.

***

"My brother and me had a run-in with Gabriel awhile back," Dean says. He, Bobby and Castiel have assembled in Bobby's library; Dean is looking through the book that he thinks contains the summoning spell for archangels that Castiel used on Raphael, but he's not finding it.

"What, that trickster?" Bobby asks. His eyes are red-rimmed from lack of sleep and he still looks none too pleased at Castiel perching on Dean's shoulder, but he seems to lack the energy—or the heart—to complain.

"Not a trickster," Dean says. "If he was, the stake would have killed him." Dean looks to Cas for backup, then quickly looks away. He can't rely on him for things like that; the slope is slippery and leads to everyone Dean loves dying.

"Gabriel is on earth," Castiel says. "He also seems to know how to walk among you, hidden."

"That trickster liked people—decent people, anyway," Bobby says.

Castiel nods. "Yes. I think he may be reasoned with."

"But first, we have to catch him." Dean finds a reference to holy oil on the page he's on and thinks he's found the summoning spell, but it's another dead end. "Where can we find his vessel?"

"Gabriel's vessel is ancient," Castiel answers. "It's likely his name was not recorded. But there may be a way."

"I'm listening."

Castiel grabs the book out of Dean's hands with an easy familiarity; Dean freezes for a moment when their hands brush. Bobby's eyebrows raise, but he says nothing.

"I need to pick up a few things," Castiel says. He sets the book back in Dean's hands and vanishes again.

"Your friends are weird," Bobby mutters as the sound of the wingflaps recedes.

Dean wants to say, "He's not my friend," but that would be too much of a lie—or too close to the truth, depending on how Dean turns it.

***

The spell is similar to the one Dean remembers: holy oil poured in a circle and set on fire is still the trap, but the summoning is different; it requires something that Gabriel touched. When Castiel returns with the legit Horn of Gabriel, Dean spends a few tense moments recalling the Horn of Truth fiasco and the fact that this thing is supposed to herald the apocalypse.

"Dude, where did you get that?" he asks incredulously.

"Never mind how I got it; I got it," Castiel offers. "But not for long. Its keeper seemed quite determined to get it back."

Dean sighs inwardly. "How much time do we have?"

Castiel shrugs. "A few hours, maybe." He looks up, and Dean realizes how close they are standing. That must have happened when Dean stepped closer to inspect the horn, but he doesn't remember doing that.

"Isn't that some kind of herald of the end times?" Dean asks, eyeing the horn—and Castiel—from a safer distance.

"Only if you blow it," Castiel says impatiently. "You choose a spot to pour the oil." Castiel points to the jar of oil sitting in the corner, out of the way so that it won't be broken by someone accidentally tripping over it.

When Dean turns back, Castiel has a book open on the table. Dean picks a spot near the door—easy to lure Gabriel that way, especially with the dozen boxes of Twinkies he has on hand—and begins to pour in a meticulous, measured, freeform circle. Circles of salt have turned him into a pro at this sort of thing. When he's done, Dean straightens up and walks over to Castiel, careful to keep a fair amount of distance between them.

"I don't bite, you know," Castiel mutters. "Much, anyway."

Dean takes one hesitant step closer. "What do we do next?"

Castiel lifts his hands from the book to the horn; he rubs his hands together and pronounces something in Enochian. "We wait," he says after the chant. 

Castiel sits down, and Dean takes that as a cue to sit opposite him across the table. "How long?" Dean asks.

"Not sure," Castiel says. "Time doesn't mean much to angels."

"Right," Dean says.

They sit in silence for a while; then Castiel's foot finds Dean's under the table. Dean threads his legs around his chair legs because he refuses to play footsie with anyone under the table. Castiel frowns. "Is something wrong?"

Dean doesn't know how to begin answering that question, so he doesn't. Castiel stands and crosses over him, towering above him and making him even more uncomfortable, if that were possible.

"This is about the church," Castiel says in a flat voice. 

That is only partially true, but again, Dean has never been particularly comfortable with words. Having Castiel stand over him is unacceptable, so he stands as well. Immediately, Castiel steps forward and jerks him into an awkward hug.

"You're okay," Castiel says, pulling back.

Dean relaxes a little into the friendly hold before pulling back himself. "I'm fine," Dean says. "I just don't—understand this."

Castiel grins, a little mischief peeking through his gaze. "You think too much sometimes. Not as much as Sam, but still." Castiel grips him in a deeper hug that brings their chests together, Castiel's head buried in Dean's shoulder, and Dean holds on, not knowing if he wants to get closer or get away. 

It is difficult to talk or even breathe properly with Castiel hanging around his neck like this. He steps a little backwards and away, his movement bringing them face to face, side by side, and Castiel wets his lips as if preparing for a kiss. 

"Ahem," comes a voice from behind Dean.

Dean and Castiel spring apart like shrapnel. Gabriel stands about three feet to the left of them, looking some mixture of amused and impressed.

"Hey, Deano," Gabriel says, offering a wink and a smile. "How's things?"

"Gabriel," Dean says, because he's having trouble separating his past and future selves lately and Gabriel knows who he damn well is, anyway. "Thanks for coming."

"No problem," Gabriel says, offering a mock salute. "Though I wouldn't mind learning how you found me out, after all this time."

Dean takes a few steps away from Castiel, toward the door, pretending more fear than he actually feels. Gabriel is powerful, sure, but he doesn't tend to punish people who don't deserve it, and Dean is banking on that. There is also no need to lure Gabriel where they need him; he is standing right near the door with a box of Twinkies already open.

Dean strikes a match and lights the circle of oil on fire, surrounding Gabriel in yellow-gold light. Gabriel purses his lips in a little frown, settling the Twinkie box on the floor next to him. "Now, Dean," he says, "what kind of trouble are you in?"

Dean blinks. "What?"

Gabriel's smirk becomes pert, his expression bemused. "You wouldn't do something this catastrophically stupid unless you were afraid of something worse. What's after you?"

"Nothing," Dean answers.

Before he can go on, Gabriel says, "You know I hate liars. Where's Sasquatch, anyway? He's the honest one."

Dean shifts from foot to foot and looks down. Gabriel's mouth forms an O of comprehension, and he nods. "I see," Gabriel says. "That's odd. I didn't think Sam was scheduled for another death for another few years at least."

Dean chokes—scheduled?—but Gabriel is still speaking.

"Then again there's something off about you." Gabriel's eyes shift to Castiel, and his eyebrows shift upward incrementally. Gabriel and Castiel regard one another for a moment, having a wordless conversation that Dean can't follow.

"Someone messed up the timeline," Gabriel says with something like real grimness. "I'm willing to bring Sam back—that will fix most things—but there are conditions."

"Name them," Dean says.

"This Back to the Future crap has to stop," Gabriel says as he faces Dean squarely. "It's hurting my head trying to keep versions of you straight."

"Tell me about it," Castiel mutters.

Dean's jaw drops open. "What?!"

"Later," Gabriel says. "Deal with your crap later." Dean shuts his mouth with difficulty, hand moving to his left shoulder in an unconscious gesture of self-comfort that he aborts with a silent snarl. Gabriel goes on, "Here's the price: you and Sam will have to remember everything of the life you came from—everything. And if you show any signs of repeating any of the shit that you did in that life, I get to come and smite you both, consequence-free. Understand?"

No, Dean didn't understand, but it sounded like Gabriel was offering the kind of second chance Dean had wanted since getting here—the kind of chance he needed. He nods cautiously. Castiel nods more sharply and douses the holy fire with a flick of his wrist.

Gabriel vanishes immediately, and Dean collapses to the floor with what feels like the worst headache of his life. He clutches his head, and Castiel places both hands on his shoulders and tells him to breathe through it.

"What is this?" Dean asks.

"Part of the price," Castiel answers. "It'll pass in a moment." Castiel pauses. "Or maybe a few hours. It varies."

"Great," Dean says. He closes his eyes to help cope, and sees flashes, images: his mom putting a pie on the table; his dad throwing him a baseball; bulls-eyeing every target with his first sawed-off. He sees baby Sam coughing up smoke from their burning house; dad dying; Bobby dying; Sam dying over and over again. He blinks, but the pain is worse with his eyes open. Vaguely, he feels Castiel's hand at his back, rubbing tension from his muscles. Castiel is speaking, too, but Dean doesn't understand the words.

He'd always thought that having one's life pass before one's eyes was a tired cliché, but here he is, actually doing it. All of his memories of his other life become vivid, in glorious Technicolor; almost unforgettable. Gabriel is making sure that he does not forget. It is his condition for saving Sam. Because he does not forget, he remembers something else.

"You knew," Dean accuses Castiel. He opens his eyes and half-turns his head to look at Castiel standing behind him. "You knew me. The whole time. You remembered."

He really wishes he didn't find Castiel's head tilt so endearing. Castiel says, "No, not the whole time. I had never met you before those demons. Once I had, I was able to recall all the timelines that included both you and me. It took some effort—it seems we travel through time a lot. But yes, I knew you after seeing you again at Bobby's."

"And you didn't tell me, why?"

Castiel shrugs. "You didn't ask," he says. "And I didn't know if you knew me or not. I thought bringing it up might confuse you, and cause you to trust me less."

"Well, next time, tell me."

"Tell you what?" Castiel asks, some incredulity seeping into his tone. "Hi, Dean, I'm your friend from the future, but you don't know me yet? Also, I'm an angel?" Castiel shakes his head. "Do you remember when we met? I was worried you'd try to shoot me again."

Dean makes a frustrated noise but decides not to argue the point any longer right now. He closes his eyes again. "Head hurts. Don't talk."

Castiel pats his back. "You're kind of cute when you're in pain."

"Say you get off on my pain again and I'll put you through that wall." Just as soon as his head stops hurting so badly.


	6. Restoration

When an archangel goes to Hell, he doesn't bother ringing the bell or using any doors. This is especially true of Gabriel: there from the beginning, at the forming of the universe, and Hell itself. 

Still, he doesn't know exactly where Sam is. Castiel had given him a fair idea, but Castiel didn't know Hell very well much past the third circle, which he had helped create. Gabriel hasn't been to Hell in a while, but he knows his way around well enough. Gabriel flashes to the entrance of the fourth circle, fist-bumps some of the drunken degenerates there, and makes his way toward the fifth. From what he knows of Sam, it is possible the kid will try fighting his way out; he might be here.

Gabriel spends a few minutes of frustrated searching—an eternity, for an angel that can move as fast a light—and picks up a faint, familiar smell. He follows it like a bloodhound on the scent. He snaps twice, summoning Little Debbie cakes to hand, and munches on them as he walks. 

The smell is emanating from one of the establishments of ill repute that blot this landscape—and it is strong outside the rickety; hole-pocked door. He suspects Sam is inside, but that's a guess; knowing Sam Winchester as he does—albeit in an oddly dislocated and impersonal way—he doesn't think Sam will stay in one place for long.

As his luck would have it, Sam is standing up just as Gabriel enters—preparing to leave, no doubt. He is standing over a low wooden table stained red and brown with filth; Gabriel doesn't think that people in the fourth circle clean, ever, but he is a bit proud of Sam for fighting his way out of the fifth. Gabriel hates the fifth circle. Bloody-minded devotion to violence bores him.

Gabriel stuffs his remaining cake inside a pocket and snaps, freezing Sam in place. He walks over with a jaunty wave. "Sammy boy," he says. "What's shakin'?"

"The Trickster?" Sam says in shock, his eyebrows raised to his hairline and mouth gaping open. "What are you doing here?"

"Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing," Gabriel says. Although Sam's feet can't move, the other patrons of this establishment can, and Gabriel feels one of them at his back. Not just a harmless denizen of this wine-sodden circle of iniquity, either; a demon. An old one. Probably one that recognizes him.

Sam tries to lift his feet unsuccessfully and pouts. "What are you here for? Don't I already have my just desserts?"

Gabriel shakes his head and for a moment attempts to be serious. "You don't deserve this," Gabriel says. "You don't deserve to be here." Something like hope flashes in Sam's eyes. Gabriel feels the demon behind him move closer until there is less than a foot of space between them, but Gabriel doesn't react. Not yet. 

There is a silence, and Sam's expression of hope fades. "Are you here to take me someplace worse? Back to the fifth circle?"

God, Winchesters could be so whiny. Gabriel opens his mouth to answer, but before he can the demon behind him pounces. He snaps and turns it into a remarkably lifelike statue of salt, frozen before it can even touch him.

Sam's eyes widen, moving from Gabriel to the salt statue and back again. "You're not just a trickster, are you?" Sam asks.

"No," Gabriel says.

Sam looks down at his mud and blood-covered self, then looks up at him and frowns. "Care to elaborate on that?"

"Nope," Gabriel says. "But you need to get cleaned up."

Sam snorts. "For what?"

Gabriel shoved the remainder of the Little Debbie in his mouth, steps forward and grips Sam's right shoulder with a firm hand. "I'm taking you home."

***

Dean's headache doesn't go away for sixteen hours, and by the time it is over he wishes he was dead. Castiel ditches him halfway through because of something offensive he said; Bobby hides completely for the whole thing.

When Dean finally feels well enough to sit up, the first thing he hunts down is water. Bobby has a pitcher of it in the fridge somewhere—but he can't find it. Some minutes later he remembers that he could have just poured water from the tap and slaps himself on the forehead.

"It's worse than being hungover," he mutters to the sink as he fills a glass. All of his memories press forward as if they have sharp corners and are trying to inch their way out of his skull. The water helps, and he pounds back six ibuprofen to take care of the rest—hang the stomachache.

He is turning around to go back upstairs when he sees a long, thin shadow. A shadow with sideburns.

Dean turns rapidly and drops his glass of water on the floor. Sam is standing before him with one hand on Gabriel's shoulder and the other wrapped around a Hershey's King Size bar. 

Gabriel winks, snaps his fingers and vanishes.

Dean has Sam in a bear hug so fast that Sam's arms can't even come up to hug back. His hold is tight and he's probably bruising a few ribs but he doesn't care, because Sam is back and bruises heal.

"Breathe—can't—" Sam gasps.

"Breathe later," Dean says. He holds on to Sam. He doesn't let him go for a long time. 

***

Sam tells Dean about his resurrection in shaky stages. Though he has a headache like Dean's, he seems to be coping with it better—perhaps because of his simple gratitude for being alive—and his memories of his old life seem to be hitting him piecemeal instead of all at once.

Dean, Sam and Bobby eat burgers at Bobby's table. Bobby is the only one of them still ignorant of their shared future, and Dean is determined that Bobby will learn as little about that as possible—though it's hard with Sam cracking jokes about his dog and Amelia and Crowley and Purgatory. 

Dean helps Bobby with the dishes and is content—save for the niggling at the back of his mind that wonders where the Hell Castiel is. He hasn't seen him since he vanished after Dean's regrettable insult toward his father and his aunt, and Dean figures that maybe the Darkness is punishing him for something.

Sam collapses around 1:00 AM, pleading food coma, and Dean returns to his room. He feels both at peace and restless at the same time. He has most of what he wants, now, but he still doesn't feel like he has everything he needs. It's been a winning sort of day—everyone is alive except his parents and Jess; and who ever thought he'd have that again?—but it's been a losing sort of life, and there's no guarantee that he's not going to lose everyone else all over again. This is why Dean fears attachment; it never lets him relax.

Dean opens his door and finds Castiel standing in the middle of his room, facing away from him, appearing perfectly calm. Dean freezes behind him. "You did it," Dean says to Castiel's back, because it is easier than saying it to his face. "You came up with a way to save Sam." He wants to thank him, but he is already concerned about how much more powerful Castiel is than him, and he doesn't want to emphasize being in his debt.

"Yes," Castiel says simply. "And you saved the world."

Dean scratches at the back of his neck and looks at the floor. He didn't save anything. The Darkness sent him here.

"For what you did," Castiel says. "For your sacrifice."

"Stop reading my mind."

"Stop thinking so loudly."

Castiel turns, and they look at one another for a moment, still, silent, poised to move—though Dean's not really sure where.

Castiel crosses the room smoothly and plants himself in front of Dean, resting both hands carefully at his sides. "We didn't really talk about this," Castiel starts, because Castiel is always better at this sort of thing than Dean—though he does think they're both terrible at it. Just not equally terrible.

"No," Dean says. They had tried, in an abortive way, in the church and during Gabriel's summoning, but everything remains unsettled and Dean doesn't know what he wants, exactly, but he knows that things can't stay as they are. "I still don't understand why you didn't tell me you remembered…"

Castiel's face sets in grim lines. "Would you have believed me? Wouldn't you have doubted me, like you did in that other life?"

Dean nods uncertainly. He doesn't tend to trust people, that's true—but it's not paranoia if people and monsters really are out to get you. Castiel shifts his hands to Dean's shoulders, and his touch is light, but present, as if he is trying to comfort Dean by holding him in a safe place, but Dean doesn't really feel safe anywhere. "Maybe," he says, "but you made me think I was alone in this. I thought I'd have to work a lot harder—do a lot more—to get you to help me. And—"

"And you think you owe me," Castiel says, completing the sentence as easy as anything. "That's foolish." He takes one hand and tilts Dean's head up, making him look Castiel directly in the eyes. "You forget, I know what you saved me from. I remember. You've saved me from more than you know.

"Besides," Castiel says, settling the hand on Dean's chin back to this shoulder. "We're friends. We don't owe one another anything."

And so Dean's last excuse to keep distance between them crumbles. Castiel isn't interested in having power over him—and though Dean thinks Castiel gives him to much credit, it is true that he's spared Castiel quite a bit. He may be cut off from Heaven, but he hasn't fallen—hasn't betrayed his family—hasn't gotten killed in a crazy apocalyptic war.

Castiel gives him a moment to think, then pulls Dean forward slightly and kisses him lightly on the forehead. "We're family, Dean," Castiel says. "No matter what happens. I'm not going anywhere."

When Dean says nothing and doesn't pull away, Castiel leans in, brushing his lips lightly against Dean's. 

While this is more comfortable than it was a few days ago—and shit, it's only been a few days—Dean still feels a bit weirded out kissing the guy. It's not like he's turned on by this or anything, and it's unfair for him to string Cas along if he's not willing to play ball.

The kiss, at first light and probing, becomes deeper; something wet and slick that has Dean pulling back for air. When Castiel moves back in, he makes a noise of impatience against Dean's mouth, and Dean is so surprised that he opens his mouth and lets Cas in.

Dean feels Castiel's erection through his pants, poking his hip, and he nearly backs away—but then realizes he's also hard. Not very, but—this is happening and—

Dean loses a few seconds, letting Castiel kiss him slack-jawed and open-mouthed. Castiel lines their hips up and grinds forward, making Dean gasp, and then he shoves Castiel away as hard as he can. 

Before he can explain—or even maybe apologize, though that's not damn likely—Castiel has disappeared. Dean stays there alone in the dark, still half-hard with lips slightly swollen. He rubs at his lips and cheek and feels them both unusually warm.

The fact is that he had been aroused by Castiel—as terrifying as that is—obviously so. And he has to make a decision now. Typically he would choose to run away from something like this, but typically, the world is about to end.

He doesn't have that excuse anymore.

***

He goes down to breakfast to find a note from Sam and Bobby; they've gone to the diner in town. Cursing because Dean refuses to cook for one and now has to drive into town alone on an empty stomach, he stomps outside in his boots and flannel PJs, gets in Baby, and drives.

The drive steadies him; it always does. It's a Sunday morning after church: quiet and peaceful, and the roads are smooth and easy. By the time he gets to the diner where the note had said they'd be, he is reasonably calm. 

Dean parks Baby, gets out and strides into the diner easy as pie, steady on his feet if a little hungry. The door is attached to a bell that rings behind him; for a moment, everyone in the diner notices him, and he almost wishes he'd put on real pants before leaving Bobby's. Every table he sees is occupied, and every quiet conversation pauses for a moment when Dean enters. After a moment, though, the other patrons return to their breakfasts and look away from him. 

Dean identifies Sam and Bobby sitting in a booth near the back, and approaches, pushing past two waiters carrying trays. To his surprise, he sees Castiel there, hidden from view by the corner of the booth. He is sitting next to Sam; they appear to be arguing about something, from the way Sam is gesticulating, using his giant monster hands to hammer in a point.

Dean and Castiel see one another at the same time, and just for once they are evenly tongue-tied, unable to say or do anything but look at the ground. 

Sam looks from Dean to Castiel and rolls his eyes. He gives Dean a confused look and shoves Castiel out of his seat. "Talk," Sam says. "You're driving me nuts."

"You said it," says Bobby, shoving a whole pancake into his mouth with his fork.

Dean spares a moment to wonder what Castiel has been saying to Sam—but only a moment. Then Castiel is stalking outside, Dean following. There are no waiters in their path, though some of the diner's other patrons appear concerned. 

The door closes behind Castiel and Dean, its bell ringing, and Castiel stops in a corner with a picture window that is out of the way of the parking lot. Dean stands in front of him, hands in flannel pockets.

They face one another without words, and Dean realizes that he has to make the first move, here—and it might be his final move.

"Cas," Dean says, scratching at his neck with the back of his hand. "About yesterday…"

Castiel stands still, saying nothing, but his stance becomes straighter, coiled for movement; Dean gets the feeling that he wants to flee. "Yes?" Castiel cocks his head, glancing out at the street and tapping his foot while he waits for Dean to go on. 

Some people pass behind them, into the diner, but Dean ignores them. He's made his decision; he'd made it the night before, after realizing that the Darkness had granted him Sam, and unbroken world, and Castiel. The Darkness had offered him what he needed most. Now, finally, he is ready to accept it.

"You said we were family," Dean reminds him, and Castiel nods, scratching his head awkwardly. "No matter what. You're not going anywhere."

"Oh. That." Castiel sounds disappointed, as if he knows what's coming and is bracing himself for it.

Dean turns his head to smile at a mother and some children as they pass into the diner, and almost makes Castiel lose his balance when he catches him by the lapels of his trench coat and swings forward into his space. Dean's hands slip down to his ass, and Castiel gasps conveniently, too startled to struggle when Dean kisses him right on the mouth. Dean squeezes his backside, slowly surrendering the kiss and drawing back. "I... uh... I'm not going anywhere, either." He grins, then straightens up and starts walking away. There is a bounce in his step, and a friendly, unhurried nod for everyone who glances his way.

Castiel's jaw works uselessly for a moment, his eyes wide as he stares at his Dean's retreating back. Dean catches a glimpse of Sam through one of the diner's windows with his mouth hanging open; Bobby appears either oblivious or uncaring, and Dean gives them both a cheerful wave. 

***  
Later that day, Rufus, Ellen and Jo come for a visit to Bobby's, making the small house even more crowded than usual. Bobby had broken out his oldest bottle of Johnny Walker Blue for the occasion, and Rufus has been guarding it jealously with his life ever since, leaving the others to scrounge what they can out of Bobby's liquor cabinet.

Dean goes back to his bench by the door, pleasantly buzzed but not exactly drunk. He sits and closes his eyes, remembering the bleak years of suffering that never happened.

"I remember all of it," Sam says, coming up to him and making space to sit on the bench. He sounds awed. "You saved the world," says Sam softly, sitting next to his brother. "Again. And me."

"I guess." Dean studies the yard, dim in the light of the setting sun. Ellen is still trying to get Cas drunk, and Cas keeps downing glass after glass of God knows what. Bobby is puttering near the wood chipper, pretending not to look at Sam and Dean, choosing to give them a brief private moment. Rufus has wandered off to the middle distance, into Bobby's junkyard, but Dean can see that his shoulders are relaxed, and when Dean waves, Rufus smiles. They are all safe. 

"I can't imagine what living that other life would have been like," Sam says, his eyes roaming the scene surrounding him. "It was so terrible and this is so..." He couldn't finish the sentence.

Dean grips Sam's shoulder tightly with one arm and gives him a watery smile. "Yeah, it is. I mean, it’s normal. Almost." Dean sighs. "You could go to school."

Sam grins. "So could you."

"Ha!" Dean laughs, then sees that Sam is serious.

"Honestly, Dean," Sam says. "What else do you really want to do with your life?"

It's a fair question, but not one Dean can answer easily; he's not even sure if he wants to answer it. The idea of having choices, options, is too new. He takes a sip of his beer and breathes deliberately. "Not sure, Sammy," Dean says. "School's not really my thing, but never say never."

Sam gives him a genuine smile and punches him playfully on the shoulder. Dean pulls up, clutching at the shoulder Sam hit—his left shoulder; the one that had been scarred when he left Hell. There is a pain like burning or searing—and then—

"What?" Sam asks.

"This weird pain." Dean takes a deep breath. "It's gone." When he skirts tentative fingers beneath the fabric of his shirt, his skin is still smooth, but he senses the burning under the surface still. Cas had always been the one to rescue him from Hell. He doesn't miss the scar anymore. He's glad that some things do heal. 

Dean looks over at Cas, then ruffles Sam's hair in the way he had when they were still children. Sam pulls away, grimacing, and Dean laughs. He reaches for his beer, then gestures for Cas to come over. 

Cas walks over to them, a little unsteady on his feet, and Dean clinks bottles with Cas and makes space on Bobby's work bench for him to sit. With Dean sandwiched between Cas and Sam it's a tight fit. Dean grabs his brother in a one-armed hug, sets his beer aside and winds the fingers of his other hand around Cas's. The sun is setting, spreading warmth along the horizon. Ellen, Bobby and Jo are arguing about something petty; Baby sits stretched out in the fading sun just beyond them. Rufus takes a long draught of his Johnny Walker Blue.

Dean thinks about grabbing his beer, but then he has to let go of Sam or Cas, and he never wants to do that again. He breathes. "Looks like I've got everything I need."


	7. Back to the Future

By giving Sam back his memory, Gabriel had been offered glimpses of a future where he had been killed by Lucifer. Other items present themselves for his attention—his fights with the Winchesters, Castiel's stupid sacrifices, several sundry apocalyptic events, an amusing television interlude—but his death irks him most. After a brief spell of indignance on his own behalf, he calms himself down by eating his weight in Twinkies and spending the night with some very classy and talented ladies. Then, when he is in a slightly better mood, he seeks out his father.

To his surprise, God isn't hiding from him anymore—and there is someone with him; someone just as powerful as he is—someone Gabriel hasn't seen since before the dawn of Creation. He senses them as he draws near the heart of Joshua's garden—oddly lush and lavish even by Gabriel's standards. 

When he finally catches sight of his father, however, he exudes an easy, if feigned, aura of nonchalance. "Hey, dad," Gabriel says, waving jauntily. "Auntie Amara. How's things?"

Chuck gives Gabriel a warm smile and a sweaty handshake. Gabriel hasn't seen this vessel in a long time, and it strikes him as awkward in an endearing way. The Darkness does not smile, but she appears relaxed.

"Did you really have the jerk the kid's strings like that?" Gabriel asks. He knows this is a bit rich, coming from him—the angel that killed Dean a hundred times and more—but Gabriel prefers more straightforward games.

The Darkness shrugs. "He's proven himself incapable of controlling himself at key moments," she says. "All I did was send him back and give him a few nudges in the right direction, and enough self-control to realize what he needed."

Gabriel snorts. If the Bible thumpers ever got ahold of this story, they'd have a field day.

"And now things on earth are as they should be," the Darkness says. "For a while."

"Yeah, until the Winchester kids get in their next crisis." Gabriel snaps his fingers, summoning Dutch chocolates to one hand. "Think we should warn them what's coming?"

Chuck's smile fades a little, and he shakes his head. "Nah. It's always been a surprise before."

Gabriel grins, showing off chocolate-coated teeth, and vanishes with a snap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all for now, folks! Hope you enjoyed it :)


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